My creative journey started during my school days. I was lucky to get an admission at Secondary Board High School, one of the oldest and renowned school in Odisha. Looking back, I can realize the values I got from some of my school teachers.
One of my favorite teacher, Mr. Daitari Sahoo, he is a man of integrity, someone with the resemblance of Narayan Shankar from the Bollywood movie Mohabbatein. Everyone in our school respected him and had seen him getting promoted to being the principal of our school but no one ever saw him hiding from his duty or enjoying the comfort zone, he just became more responsible. It's very easy for people in that position, especially in government schools, to hide from duty and leverage the comfort but it was impossible for him. He would come to school as early as possible and leave as late as possible. It was his daily routine to do patrolling with a piece of stick. Everyone respected him and were equally afraid of him. He taught us true leadership. I learned a lot of things from my school teachers, and it would take pages if I continue writing.
Coming to my creative journey, our school use to have an exciting event which is celebrated on August 3, the birthday of our school. The entire month used to be the most creative days during my schooling. All the classrooms in our school are named after various states of India and during this event, students of each classroom were encouraged to do certain extracurricular activities related to the state to which our classroom belonged. Students would pick up traditional dance, food, sports but my favorite was Art & Craft and Science Projects. If someone just gives me some thermocol sheets, a cutter, a fevicol packet, and some all pins, I would build them monuments like the Taj Mahal or Lal Quila. I used to draw sketches of various monuments or sketches of freedom fighters or anything that was related to the state our classroom belonged to. I also used to participate in science projects. During these days, I used to do the most exciting and creative activities, this gave birth to my craftsmanship.