It
was about two years back, when I was living in a different city, away from most
of my friends and family. I felt quite lonely sometimes and a colleague of mine
recommended joining a hobby club. I found the idea of a hobby club to be quite
intriguing and decided that the best one for me would be a book club (or
a writing club, but I haven’t had any experience with that yet, I will
definitely blog about it once I attend one).
Since
then, I have been looking for some book clubs that I can join. In July of last
year, I finally found a good one in the area where I live. For some reason,
during these last 10 months, I have not attended any of their in-person
meetings. And earlier this week, when I came across an opportunity to attend
one of their meetings from the comfort of my home, I went for it.
The
book club is designed in a way that each individual attending the meeting has
to talk about a book related to the theme. The theme is decided by the
facilitator. The theme of today’s meeting was “Animals”, and we were to discuss
about books that center around animals. We could bring fiction or non-fiction
books. Lucky for me, I am currently in the middle of a book about animals, so I
decided to talk about it. The book is titled All Creatures Great and Small, and
is written by James Herriot. I’ve previously read 2 books about animals –
Animal Farm by George Orwell and Jennie by Paul Gallico. I reckoned that it
would be better to talk about the book I’m currently reading, hence went with
my choice.
I
also asked a friend of mine if he would like join the discussion with me. He
agreed to join since he also loves reading. I figured it would make it a bit
more comfortable for both of us to have someone we know in the discussion.
The
meeting commenced at 3 PM sharp, with a round of introduction of all the people
attending. The facilitator asked us to share our names, our (most) favorite and
least favorite animals, as well as our favorite fictional animals. This was quite
interesting. Sharing my favorite animal was a no-brainer, given how much I love
cats! The other two were slightly more tricky.
Once
the round of introductions was over, they delved straight into the books that
each person wanted to talk about. It was executed in a round robin – each
individual was allocated about 5 to 10 minutes to speak about his or her
respective book. I must say I was quite nervous before the meeting, since this
was a first for me, and I was going through something oddly similar to stage
fright. I was thinking about what might happen if I lost my words, or if
someone asked me a difficult question that I might not be able to answer.
Anyway,
I decided not to pay attention to these thoughts, and instead emphasize on the
larger picture. “We are all here, sharing something we all love, and that’s
what matters”, I thought. Thus, I went on to speak about the book that I am
reading, and conveyed my message in the best possible way I could. I ensured
that I spoke about why I am enjoying the book so much. There was one person who
had a comment on this particular author, and another person in the group who
asked me about the timeline in which the book was set. I tried responding to
both of them. The
meeting continued until 4 PM. My friend, who was also a part of the call, shared
his thoughts on a book too. Some people had comments to share and questions to
ask him as well.
It
was certainly a unique experience. Something worth mentioning here is that, as
always, there was some inertia before the meeting began. I was certainly
anxious and nervous about speaking amongst a group of strangers, so much so that I considered dropping out. I’m glad I
didn’t though, and was more relaxed once I actually shared what I wanted to
share. I am happy that I decided to go for this discussion. It was an
experience like never before, and I would like to participate in more such
meetings in the upcoming days, hopefully in-person.
Comments
Post a Comment