Last month a blog friend wanted a few of us bloggers to write three points that they wished were better for women of the morrow (link). Along with that we had to give a three word bio of ourselves. This was mine: Book-lover, Blogger, Bird-stalker.

As a girl child with a very restrictive lifestyle, confined within the walls of my home, life to me was all about books. I devoured them in all forms, sizes and shapes. I read whatever books I could lay hands on. That is how I happened to read Seven Years in Tibet, much before most children my age would have given it a second glance. As far back as I can remember my nose was always buried in books, and when out of it I was merely daydreaming of what I had read. Oh, the magical world that books conjure up before one’s eyes! I lived (still do) in the stories they had to say, in the places they showed me, with the characters in them for company. To this day it is a struggle to pull myself out of the world of the book I am reading, back into the real one I am living in. Books let me look beyond the boundaries drawn for me while growing up. In fact I owe to books, more than I owe ANYONE AT ALL, for whatever I know, the way I think, and for who I turned out to be.

Being a blogger came next. This is my 7th year of blogging, and in those seven years I have shifted three platforms, written more than 1000 posts including those lost forever in moving from one place to another, diversified to a poetry blog, a photo-blog and also one for my darling Labrador Luci. Sometimes I do wonder how long I’d be blogging. Is it that, once a blogger always a blogger? Or will I wind it all up and decide to go loll on the beach listening to the waves? Just kidding. As if life is a holiday on a beach. Ha!

Bird-stalking (in other words, bird-watching) is a more recent activity. I was not yet a bird-stalker back when I noticed this exotic looking brown and green bird sitting on the electric cable outside my house. I took a click and posted the picture on Twitter to find who this winged visitor was. I was told that it was a Brown-headed Barbet. Wah, imagine that! That was the first I was hearing of Barbets. Then there were those tiny birds, only as big as huge butterflies, flitting to and fro on the garlic wine in my garden. I had no clue they were called Sunbirds. From there I have come a long, long way. Now I don’t wonder, but make straight for Google for an id. Over time, I have even earned myself the sobriquet of Birdwali Aunty from BlogwatiG‘s daughter. The latest is the bouts of *bird-fever* I reel under, an affliction, a serious one at that, which can be kept under control only by visiting places where birds abound. No kidding. That’s why I went off to Vedanthangal Bird Sanctuary last month. But I can already feel the bird-fever coming on once again, and have the next place lined up to be off to as soon as I am done with the A to Z Challenge. 😉

Well, so that’s about me. Who are you in three words?

©Shail Mohan 2014

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