Ever since my tiny fingers could curl around the slender body of a pencil, I’ve been sketching the world as I see it—strange, whimsical, and altogether wonderful. My first attempts at art were born from the pages of the “Amar Boi” textbook, where equations and Bengali proverbs mingled with my doodles. In those early years, a page of academic rigor would magically transform into my canvas, filled with the strokes of a budding imagination.

In our modest home, love was the only thing we had in abundance—especially my mother’s love, which was vast and elastic, stretching to fit around the corners of our little world. She had a knack for making the impossible seem possible, turning pennies into gold and minutes into hours. To save on rickshaw fare, she orchestrated our school schedules like a well-rehearsed ballet—my sister and I taking turns like the sun and moon. My sister studied from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., while I, the early bird, would start at dawn and finish just in time to accompany my mother on her errands. After school, we would make our way to her friend Dr. Tiabanu Aunty’s chamber, where I would settle into my unofficial post as the resident notepad artist. While my mother stitched stories into her latest designs, I would lose myself in the world of lines and shapes, replicating anything and everything I could find in my textbooks.

For the longest time, I nursed a dream of becoming a painter, but life, in its infinite wisdom, had other plans. Art school was a dream that shimmered just out of reach, so I sharpened my skills with whatever tools I could find—a stubby pencil, the backside of a tattered bill, the margins of a newspaper. Life had a different palette for me, one I wasn’t yet ready to see.

Then, two years ago, the world turned on its head, caught in the grip of a pandemic that seemed to suspend time itself. Suddenly, I found myself with hours to spare and a well of creativity that refused to run dry. I dove headfirst into the world of graphic design, letting the colors and forms sweep me away. Six months of intense training, and there I was—a certified professional graphic designer, though I knew in my heart that I had only just begun to scratch the surface. The ocean of design stretched out before me, vast and uncharted, both thrilling and terrifying in its immensity.

So here I stand, at the edge of this new world, ready to dive deeper, to explore the unknown, and to keep learning, no matter where the currents might take me. Wish me luck—I think I’ll need it.