Hobbies are what give your life that extra edge

I HAVE had hobbies since the time I learnt to walk. When I was in junior school, I used to rear Siamese fighting fish in bottles and stashed them under my bed. Why under the bed?

The reason was that darkness helped add colours to the fighting fish's scales. This I found out from friends who also reared Siamese fighting fish as a hobby. We used to keep these fish in individual bottles because they would set upon each other if two of them were to find themselves in the same bottle.

The only time when fighting fish were put together in the same bottle was when a wager was on. Since we were mere kids who had practically no money in our pockets, we dispensed with that thought.

Later on in life, I reared fighting spiders. My friends and I used to trudged along little explored paths in secondary forest, scrounging for certain vegetation where spiders flourished.

One or two of us would have razor blades in our pockets. When we sighted a spider, the species which we would recognised, we would immediately cupped that particular section where the spider was and a friend would help slice the leaves. Then we took the "trapped" section out in the open and gently nudged the spider into the boxes which we had in our pockets.

The idea was to bring them out in the open and challenge our friend's "fighter king" to a match. This hobby went on for years, until I practically grew out of it. We used to feed the spiders with dead houseflies. But little did we know that when a spider had eatern, it would take days for it to recover because it would become too bloated and sluggish to engage another spider in a battle.

Next was catching birds. Not so much catching them but shooting them with a catapult. We used to take long walks in other people's back lanes and perked our ears keenly to hear the chirp of a distant bird on a tree.

My interest in this particular bloody sport when I actually shot and killed a sparrow. The sight of the dead bird and the wanton killing caused so much distress in me that I gave up shooting with catapults almost immediately.

One of the longest hobbies, I ever had and have is collecting First Day Covers. I started that hobby when I was about 17 years old. Today almost 30 years later, I am still at it. It is a great hobby of great learning proportions.

Every growing child should have a hobby of some kind. Be it reading, walking, or collecting theme cards, the hobby should be sustained for a number of years. Hobbies are great introductions to the world of knowledge and friendship.

It is through collecting First Day Covers that I established friendships with people I have not met overseas. It is through them that I managed to expand my collection of First Day Covers from other countries.

I also collect books. In my early years, I didn't have the financial means to acquire and sustain such a hobby, but today, decades later when the subject of money is no longer an issue, I have been able to expand on the hobby.

Reading, writing and collecting antiquarian books have given me some of the most pleasure times in my life. Its value cannot be gauged. It is the silent satisfaction. The knowledge that I have benefited in such a pervading way that gives me a great sense of worth.

Life should not be just about walking a think straight line but creating paths for others to walk as well. It is when we meet strangers, that we can become friends and after we have become friends, we will enrich each other's lives.

Hobby is a marvellous vehicle for making great journeys in this life of ours. We need travel on this well trodden path constantly and with great diligence. It is only when we do so that we can become teachers and students at the same time.

Hobbies do not need great investment. The most precious investment that we can make on a hobby is our time and a mental commitment to develop that hobby. A man without hobby is a dull man. A man who has hobbies brings that extra spark to his life and that extra lift to his walk.