I am an avid scrapbook fan. I mean I would rather cut and paste pictures than paint (but I would rather sketch than cut and paste, but thats a different matter). My years of teenage romantic passion and the “i-will-change-the-world” years of idealism were spent in collecting pictures for my scrapbooks. My dad was an enthusiastic supporter in my endeavour, being an avid collector of newspaper clippings (which range from tennis to articles on budgets in the 80s). Being less politically inclined, I immersed myself into the world of fashion and astronomy.

My best scrapbook was flinched from me by my school in Madras on the pretext of giving a prize for “best holiday homework” (EEYEW!). I had wonderful images of the Saturn, its rings and my own handwritten snippets, not found in the articles, some fluorescent germs under the microscope and the picture of hte last cheetah of the Indian Wild (in 1991 I think). Sigh.. but I plodded on and made two others of birds and animals.

The saddest part was, despite a supportive father, I had a very discouraging mother whose only aim in life then was to throw all my collections of newspaper. Nowadays, being a stickler for clean looking rooms myself, I hide my collection inside a huge shelf, which I never open except when I am doing a collage :). I have “ported” my love for scraps into collages, which means a lot more clippings piled up on my shelf. (Thankfully, mom is far away in India and cant throw these hehehe :)).

Oh btw, the point of this rambling is, there is a scrapbook of Lewis Caroll online. And I would die to get such a wonderful handwriting as that in the book.