What an evolution !!!

I'm not going to elaborate on Darwin's theory of evolution and how homosapiens had evolved from chimpanzees. I want to write about how my personal space has evolved from my childhood.

Personal space - one that I always crave for. It's not just the freedom to do what I believe. It also means the actual physical space in my house, which I can say it's mine. I'm always very possessive about my little kingdom. My brother's belongings can never enter my fort.

I'm not sure when this started in my life. My toys were usually the kitchen set (choppu saaman in Tamil) in different sizes and shapes - from the plastic model (the tiny blue coloured pressure cooker, cute red coloured pot - Oh, I miss them) , to the eversilver one to the wood variety to the one made of clay. Such beautiful and precious collections they were !!! When I was in class 2 or 3 (not sure!!!), during my weekends, I used to carry my books, all my toys, a cream coloured water bag and a straw mat to a verandah adjacent to my house. Arranging all these things neatly and then doing my homework sitting on the mat on a sultry Saturday afternoon amidst the almond, guava and eucalyptus trees was such a pleasant feeling. That place was mine alone.

My mother was a Tamil Pandit. I used to see her preparing for her M.A. exams, sitting on the wooden chair with her Tamil literature books on a desk that my grandfather had given us. The last shelf of a wooden rack was allocated to me adjacent to my mother's study table. I used to clean my shelf every week and arrange all my books and notes in an order. The shelf also served me as a desk so that I can sit down on the floor and write, keeping my books on it.

I can never sell my books to the second hand book store. I always like to keep them with me for future reference (???) , although I never referred to them later. My brother is the exact opposite character of mine. As soon as the final exams are over, he would want to sell his books. He can't even wait for the results to come. On top of that, he would force me to sell my books as well. Somehow, I managed to save my Maths and Science texts from him.

As years passed by, I started to use my mother's study table. I decorated it with love and care. Additional two shelfs were placed on top of my table which served as my book shelves. A tiny Ganesha idol was sitting beautifully at the centre of my desk. Ink bottles, blue and black coloured with separate fillers, a pen stand with my favourite Hero pen and elegant Camel ink pen standing erectly, a date changing calendar and a small clock were the other proud subjects of my kingdom.

Since my father is into business, he makes use of a lot of cardboard files to file his receipts, bills and vouchers. He maintains them yearly and at the end of the year, I get those old files. I file my question papers, notes and other essential papers subjectwise. While revising for an exam, I had the entire set in a single file. This habit did continue till my college days.

My study desk used to be so well organized that the moment I go there, my concentration levels would be very high. When I came to Bangalore, I had a whole house to arrange things as I wish. But the motivation to keep things organized was never the same as it used to be in the 3*2 square feet area of our 12*12 single bedroom house in Chennai. This is what I had been thinking so far.

Hurray.......We had brought a study desk recently at home. I could feel the motivation to keep MY books and papers organized creeping on me. Yesterday, I found a couple of Karthi's books on my desk and I put them on his computer table. :-)

Back to my form, I guess. Karthi's books, BEWARE. I'm coming......