But I watched tv a lot and loved all the sports they showed on Tv, whether it was tennis,pool,baseball (this is never played in India),polo(I loved horses). I always dreamt that in some life I was a cool kid like in the movies playing the guitar and no not singing or dancing as I was not interested in either of this as a kid.
Something I should mention about dancing: we always had this Onam functions for which the traditional kaikotiikali dance was oraganized. My mom always took part in it and later on mom started organizing the dance and they always needed 10 girls. Once I was 12-13 years and had enough height I was always dragged into this very very reluctantly.
I was so bad that after the dance practise at home my mom and sis would tease me with the song"Khambe jaise khadi hain, ladki hain ya chadi hain", yeah- you got it right I had no grace.
But later years I really started njoying dancing and looked forward to take part in dance functions.
Coming back to my hobbies, years later when I started working and I do not why but my passion for horse-riding kept increasing I searched on the web and found a horse riding school --Japalouppe Equesterian Center.
Horse Riding
It is situated at Talegaon. I enrolled for it sometime in Jan 2002 for a 1 year membership and a weekly class on every Saturday. Every Saturday after work at noon, I caught the local train to go to Talegaon station, walked from there to the Center in the hot sun, after class walked back to catch the local train. It was at this time I got my first Nike shoes(for the grip). The whole experience was great. You had to brush the horses, saddle them, mount them, walk them and 1st thing was to trot on them. The one hour for the class passed by very fast and I loved every moment of it. I class I remember quite distinctly when my instructor me and another lady decided to take a walk(on the horse ofcorse) through the farm. As we were nearing the end my horse for some reason decided to canter (i.e run forwards fast), I being new did not know how to handle him and everyone kept shouting to pull the reins that I was holding too, thankfully the horse decided to stop with me still on it's back. :) .I went for 4 months and then the rains came in July which made me lazy and then I skipped some classes adn then I got into TCS mumbai which put a complete stop to my 1st passion.
Guitar
In the year 2007 in TCS(Mumbai) I was very restless and I felt I needed to keep myself occupied. It was then that maitree had started these guitar classes, so after a litte coaxing from my friend I bought a guitar and joined in. Initially it was a 3 months basic course which would then get to an advanced course. I went for 3 months and did not extend it after that because the classes were at Andheri on Saturdays, I had to travel with the guitar from Bvli to Andheri and most of the times from there to Pune which was getting tiring, hence decided to Stop, but i do know to strum on a guitar.
Dance
Now you do remember me telling about my dancing skills as a kid but as I grew up I loved to dance. I could be very natural on the stage and I did take part in various functions. The best was at Stamford where me and my friends had to do a dance for TCS function. We had loads of fun practising and so much so that we would literally dance on roads. Back in mumbai with a little coaxing from Sachin we together joined Bharat sir's dancing class. 2 days in a week 1 hr session. I stuck to this from Nov-2007 to May 2008. After that sir took a leave and then with my preparations to come to US it stopped.
Now that i was in US, I had to try out something different, so I joined for my next hobby
Ice Skating
I tried ice skating once abt 3 yrs back and I could not move one step ahead with my feet in that shoe which balanced on ice with a thin blade. Later when i was in Wisconsin we went for a State Park and there they had an Ice skating ring. There was an old man teaching a few students and he guided us on how to walk on the ice. He said I was doing good for a beginner and i should join his classes, but me being there only for a month i did not pursue that option much.
While here in MN, i got some ice hockey shoes from one of my friends and i thought I should try it out. A search at the Eden Community center showed that they ahd a 3 months beginner course from jan2009- mar 2009. 1 day a week. I promptly joined and went for all the classes (missed 2). We were taught how to fall on the ice, walk on the ice and then glide. I can very confidently say that I can glide very well on the ice now.
Red Hot Salsa
Nov-2010 - Joined this new class at Eden Prairie with hubby. Attended only 1 class but enjoyed it thoroughly.
Fishing
July-2011 - Yes, yes, actually got Fishing license and bought fishing rods with reels, bobs,plastic worm baits and went fishing.
Managed to catch couple of fishes but threw them back immediately as they are the smaller version(not good to eat). had real fun
