How art came back to my life..

As a child, I loved to draw and paint. The paintbrush was my favourite tool. A paintbrush to me simply meant that I could paint the world that I imagined in my head. I fondly remember rushing to my art class after school so that I could continue whatever it was I started painting.

I vividly remember our relocation from Singapore to India. My parents' entrepreneurial endeavours drove us to Coimbatore in India. I was around ten years old at the time and it seemed like a long vacation. Having spent my formative years in the comfort of a developed country like Singapore, India was very alien to me. Everything was moving around me very quickly. In a blink of the eye, I was in a new school, we had moved into a small apartment, my parents started a company and soon they rented a small factory.

I didn't have any friends, no more art classes and I had to get used to an entirely different education system. This wasn't easy on me. Not at first. The pressure of fitting in, getting good grades and performing well drove me further away from my art. I was in an education system that emphasised heavily on getting the 'marks' and getting 'high scores'. Art and other extra curricular activities always came secondary. Eventually I did adapt to the system, made friends and performed well. But I didn't have art by me. I was striving to perform and maintain my performance that art at the time didn't seem like a priority.

I joined a boarding school as a high schooler. And that wasn't easy on me too. I was extremely insecure about myself, tried to portray myself as someone I was not and that eventually lead me closer to self-doubt and anxiety. Having changed the environment I was comfortable with, a couple of times, always led me to once again adapt to the new environment, and art was always far away.

It was in college when art came back to me. Although I was in a different place yet again, I had made some great friends and was doing very well in college as I fell in love with what I was studying. I had also made my peace with social media. Everything was falling in place but something was still missing. It was one of my classmates who got me drawing again. He had showed me a couple of his sketches and casually asked me if I sketched or enjoyed sketching. When I was asked that question, I remember a flush of memories had come back to me, days of my art classes. It was an indescribable feeling mixed with joy, sadness and happiness. I realised I forgot about art. Art wasn't a hobby to me. It was a part me as a child and it still is even today. But I just let it go. How could I let go of something so valuable to me?

I went back to my room that and drew something. I think it's a picture of Bob Marley. After I finished it, I experienced a sense of satisfaction and calmness from within. Something I hadn't felt since I was a child. I remember tearing up in my room when I finished my drawing. I was overwhelmed with emotions. I decided to sketch something after that and that's what got me started again. A random question from a friend got art back to my life. I've done so many sketches and painting since then.

When something is deeply a part of you, even if you haven't connected with that part for a while, it is always there within. It will never go away.

Your heart knows the way, run in that direction - Rumi