My journey from healthcare professional to a paper artist at RawAtCraft was like a roller-coaster ride in which COVID 19 first lockdown played a major role. Although COVID-19 was a horrifying and depressing time for many, there was, however, a silver line. The lockdown offered me an opportunity to indulge in my passions, which had taken a backseat due to time constraints.

Being a girl in the middle class was not easy to leave a so-called conventional job and do something unconventional but that decision to leave everything behind, and follow my passion was not taken in a day.

I was a health care professional and simultaneously prepared for UPSC entrance. Thinking maybe it’s a good idea to do, I enrolled in a coaching institute without really understanding what I was getting into. Imagine years of classes and tuitions, fat books to mug up, studies extending till the wee hours of the morning, recurring exams, and also continuing my job.

I always wanted to escape the rat race. Sitting in front of the office desktop and during the rush to finish my daily task, I used to ask myself, what am I doing? And if I was doing something I really want to do, life would be so good.

Every day was turning into a struggle, to wake up and go to work, to follow the same routine and to do an ordinary job and at the same time, there was the pressure of getting married. Ultimately, after working for more than a year, in May 2020, I took the call to quit my job and consider working in paper art full time.

It was the time when the first COVID-19 outbreak happened. So I got a mixed reaction from my family as they were also concerned and the focus was shifted to COVID-19. However, when I explained that I want to do something on my own and want to do something art-related, they all were a little upset and not convinced.

Since childhood, I used to make paper flowers, wall hangings, and buckets through the newspaper. As Albert Einstein said, "The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind."

Similarly, now I had ample time as I left the job and there was a lockdown. Then I utilized my time doing web surfing and seeing the senior artist's work and simultaneously through YouTube I sharpened my skills too. I saw some beautiful quilling work on Instagram which made me realize that we can do wonder through quilling. I used to do quilling extending till the wee hours of the morning. Then I conceptualized RAWatCraft and created a social media page where I started posting my quilling artwork. I got really warm appreciation from the viewers, so the work started coming which motivated me more to do more hard work thus, from 2020 I conducted personal and corporate projects and even did online live sessions and workshops. After that, I even came up with my quilling course and got a wonderful response from many people who wanted to learn this beautiful and meditative art.

I have worked with several corporates like offshoot agency private limited, Alfatherm private limited, Alok privates limited, TedX, Kati Patang cafe, Lusso agency, etc.

I believe that if someone has a dream and zeal to achieve it, no one can stop you from attaining your goal despite all odds.