My Interests Author Dr. K.S. Kang

 

My Interests

Author: Dr. K.S.Kang

I was quite impressed by people having balanced personality, having an ideal blend of physical, intellectual, and spiritual strength. They followed the dictum of Right Time, Right Dress for Right Occasion. Their life was systematically divided into well compartmentalized slots of reading, listening and playing music, physical exercise and playing games. A man gets a human life after a lot of waiting, turbulence and troubles so he should utilize it for the general benefit of humanity by rising above the narrow confines of me, myself and my family. Being educated at a military biased educational institution I comprehended the significance of a good turn out and well dressed in appropriate clothes quite early in life. Dress code was prescribed for every occasion in the school whether it was PT time, or games time or the studies. There were three dresses that were to be changed daily for PT, Games, Classes and Evening dress if the night suit was not included. In the morning and evening the dress prescribed was white half sleeves shirt or T-shirt, white shorts or pants with white socks and white canvas shoes in Summers and a grey pull over was added during the winters.

As it was a military biased institution whose primary aim was to provide officer material to Armed Forces by preparing young boys for admission into National Defence Academy so the school uniform prescribed for classes the uniform of Desert Combat Corps consisting of Half sleeves Khakhi Shirt with shoulder flaps and pocket caps, Khakhi Shorts in Summers and Khakhi Pants in Winters with provision of wearing belt, and black leather Oxford type shoes with blue stockings that covered almost whole of your shins. Added to it was a olive Green beret cap or Pugree for sikh students with School logo in steel and an orange Heckle.

There was also dress code for evening too that comprised of White full sleeves shirt, Pants with black leather shoes and school tie and added to it was a navy blue Tweed coat in winters and grey worsted pant in winters. Besides there was different dress code for Wednesdays and Saturdays that comprised of Blue Shirt full sleeves, Khakhi Pants, Black leather shoes, school tie in Summers and navy blue Tweed coat and worsted pants in the winters.

As a student of literature I developed the habit of reading classics in the long summer vacations after the Tenth class and Twelfth Class exams. As the summers were intense and scorching in the part of the country where I lived so it was nearly impossible to go out in the summer vacations during the day. As I was son of faculty member so I had an additional benefit and privilege of getting books from the school library that was quite well stocked with English classics atleast. So taking benefit of this privilege I read authors ranging from Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens to Arthur Mclean, Harold Robbins, James Hadley Chase, Carlolyn O’Keene’s Nancy Drew Series, Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven Society and of course Hardy boys series. Habit of reading has become by life long habit and I hope I will retain it till the last phase of my life. During school days I not only read English classics but I went through Russian classics as well like Tolstoys’s War and Peace, Dostovesky’s Crime and Punishment, Maxm Gorky’s Autobiography in three volumes and his great work The Mother and the short stories of Anton Chekhov. Here I would like to mention that I was not interested in reading newspapers and magazines as much as in reading classics mostly stories and novels.

My other interest, besides literature is music. Those were the days of Gramophone and circular black records. The credit of drawing me towards Ghazals and serious film music goes to my sister who used to get good marks as she was quite studious so she prevailed over her parents to buy a HMV stereo music system with a few records of Ghazals and classic film music. As a result of this I grew interested in reading some of the finest poetry of Hindi and Urdu classic authors like Harivansh Rai Bachhan, Ghalib, Iqbal, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Firaq Gorakhpuri, Sahir Ludhianvi and Amrita Preetam. As I was born in a Sikh family whose holy book Guru Granth Sahib was composed in Indian classical music system of Ragas. So I wanted to get a glimpse of right forms of different Ragas. As I was trying to find somebody who can take me to the world of Indian classical music I came into contact with my Head of Department and Vice Principal of M.P. Government P.G.College Chittorgarh Dr. S.S.Shrotriya who drew me into an organization named SPIC-MACAY whose aim was to preserve and introduce classical music and culture among the youth of this nation by organizing concerts of artists in the campus of educational institutions. As a result of which I had soul elevating life time experience of listening to stalwarts of classical music both vocal as well as instrumental like Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Dagar Brothers, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Pt. Shiv Sharma and Pt. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and many more. As I wanted to go through scriptures of Sikhism so I learnt Punjabi or Gurumukhi script, though I do not have any official and formal qualification in it. But this gave me opportunity to come across the stalwarts of Punjabi Literature like Waris Shah, Nanak Singh, Jaswant Singh Kanwal, Bhupendra whose poems I have translated into English and many more.

Studying in a residential public school, though I was a Day Scholar as my father was a staff member of the school, I got immense opportunities of playing many modern games both indoor as well as outdoor. I learnt playing games like Cricket, Football, Hockey, Basketball, Badminton, Baseball, and Tennis in outdoor activities and Table-Tennis, Chess, Billiards, Carom, Chinese Checkers and the like in the indoor activities. Still I regret that I could not learn playing Volley ball though it is a quite popular game in Indian scenario. In fact the facilities for games were so ample in the school that it spoiled me like a person who cannot decide what to take and what to leave at a sumptuous feast. The facilities for games were so many that I was unable to concentrate on any one game. The result was that I could not excel in any one. My experience and my advise to the youngsters is to concentrate on one game only as the competition has increased manifold if they want to achieve anything in this field in their life. I would also like to suggest that choose individual games as it is easier and more convenient to plan your training and schedule in individual games than in team games as it is nearly impossible to find ten equally motivated and like minded individuals, who are equally committed to make a team. With age I do not claim to be as active on the playfield as during the young age but I enjoy watching live games on Television a lot and now my workout is nearly reduced to walk and play minor indoor games only meant to maintain my fitness as much as I can and as long as I can. So these were a few interests that led me to enjoy my life in the same way as the spices lead a person to eat a dish