The clock ticked faster every passing minute, like tempo rising to build up tension before the drop. All hands in the room moved with an increased frenzy, losing their initial deft maneuvers. I sat in a corner, motionless. The thirty five chosen finalists from across India toiled to win the National Bal Shree Honour. With fingers mummified in glue & paper bits, my resources exhausted and my artwork nowhere near completion, I had no other option but to sit helpless until...

Art has been a part of my life longer than I can recall. It began with an infant's guileless habit of scrawling crayons against kitchen walls and escalated to a point where every encounter with another affectionate aunt or uncle would result in a new portrait, albeit bent out-of-shape, thanks to a five-year-old's sense of proportion. When I entered grade 7, my mom enrolled for AutoCAD lessons and naturally out of curiosity, I started to tag along her to class. Soon...