Hey y'all! 

I am the owner of theArtisticcAbode and here I am about to share who I was , is and would like to be. How am I, umm wait... where am I going to start now ? ....Alright I have never had a lot of experience blogging and this is probably my second attempt after my first terrible attempt at writing a blog 13 years ago.

If I were to describe myself, I would say I am a very optimistic, fun loving, living for the tiniest moments , a spendthrift(not anymore), and a fairytale dreaming little girl(a tiny part of me still does that). Before I go on, do you guys believe in fairytale ? And what is fairytale according to you? 

Ok let's move on. So, I was someone who used to daydream all the time. I was never an A+ student, always in the B+/A- category and I was happy that way. I used to crack all  my exams with last minute studies (not proud of it, thinking about how many years I've wasted listening to absolutely nothing from my professors). 

I was put into a lot of extra curricular activities right from when I was about 3rd grade. Music, dance, drawing , Bhagavat Gita , glass painting and a lot more classes. One thing about me is,  I am really bad at sports. My parents had tried to give me some exposure in sports like high jump, swimming and I remember being a colossal failure at them. The only game I play is badminton (beginner level) but nothing other than that.  But I used to enjoy all my artsy classes. I learnt music for about 8 years and went on to perform few concerts, All India Radio and in some television competitions. I even had a youtube channel where I  recorded a lot of songs for fun.  Food, cinema ,arts and friends were everything to me up until the end of my 20s. 

Another thing about me is that I had always wanted to be a part of two things - 1 was to do something in the world of cinema(sucker, obsessive cinematic creature) and become an entrepreneur (do something big) . I just didn't know what I was going in either of my aspirations. It had always been a small fire burning in some corner within me. On the other side my parents never really wanted me and my sister to get into academics. They were happy about us developing a passion for something other than academics and skillset to make a career on any one of our extracurriculars. They were the dream parents any kid could ask for. But me on the other hand never knew what to do with my life. I was the jack of all trades, but never a queen of anything at that point. So what I did when the time came to choose? You're right I followed the herd and went on to become an Engineer.  

After I graduated and went on to work for a Fortune 500 company, I was like ... is this it? I know this is a dream for a lot of people, yes I am grateful for the opportunites I had got, but I was just not liking it. So I started trying so many different things as a hobby  - sewing, learning to develop apps, my youtube channel and few other things. But none of it really gave me the satisfaction and motivation to pursue them full time. But I just kept trying.

Few years later, I decided to try something with my lifelong dream of being a part of  the cinematic world. So I went on to find a community that made short films near my place. I collaborated with them and also attended few auditions for acting. I got a role in a short film but then right before we went on to shoot, there was a disagreement between the producer and the writer. So the movie was shelved. I waited for couple weeks but didn't get a lot of response. So what I did was took matters into my own hand and went on to write a script that was so long (lol) where it needed way too many iterations of edits. I was looking for a director who can bring my script to life. I found a cinematographer in the meanwhile and when we collaborated, he encouraged me to direct the movie instead of looking for a director. So I took the role of a director and went ahead with making the movie. Everything hit the right places and I was able to assemble a cast and a small crew for the movie. I developed few important skillsets for movie making while I was making my first film. I was also going to acting classes by then. Long story short, I made four short films in a span of a year and a half. That was the most satisfying thing I had ever done in my life for the first time. 

Fast forward to 2021, I had a baby and as a year went by as a new mom  I started to think about how I'm going to make more movies with a baby. I figured that the reality that it was going to take me few years to go out and start making movies.  But then as days went by, I went into a severe low in my job , not being satisfied and frustrated eventually not being a really fun mom. I soon realized that only a happy mom can make a happy child and a happy family. 

I read a lot of non-fiction books as they've improved my life in a lot of ways. One day I was listening to an audio book called "The 4 hour workweek" and it made a significant difference in the way I started to think about how I go about my life, how much time I was wasting doing trivial stuff and worrying about things that could have been avoided or done in a better way. It majorly re-kindled my fire to get into entrepreneurship . That was where it all started.  

It was the season of Chrysanthemums and one day I was starring at it and thinking what am I going to do? I had previously come across a book title called "Use what you've got" written by the shark Barbara Corcoran in the library and this was about couple months before the flower starring episode. That title immediately struck me when I was starring at the flowers and I immediately plucked a few and pressed them in one of my books. Few days later I took it out and made my first pressed floral collage frame with everything I had at home. I instantly fell in love with the process. And that's how "TheArtisticcAbode" was born.

My biggest learning from that moment was -  Everything is just around us, but we don't really observe things coz we are so busy running the "race" . 

More on the next blog :)