Creators Corner

Started posting little latte-art videos with the Kanchenjunga in the background. Ten views, then a hundred, then a tourist walked in saying 'I came because of your reel'. Still can't believe a phone camera did that.

Been teaching guitar to twelve kids in Shillong for two years. One of them just wrote her first song about her grandmother and I had to leave the room so I didn't cry in front of a 14-year-old. That's the whole job, honestly.

Three years freelancing as an illustrator and clients still open with 'it's a small job, should be quick.' The small job is never small. But when someone frames my drawing and sends me a photo of it on their wall — that feeling pays a little of what the money doesn't.

Bird photos on a cracked phone

People shoot wildlife with two-lakh cameras. I have a second-hand phone with a cracked corner and a lot of patience. Got a racket-tailed drongo mid-flight last week. The gear matters less than knowing where the bird sits at dawn.

The diary I never open in public

Fifteen years of Urdu couplets and I've shown maybe three people. There is a specific fear in letting someone read a line you wrote at 2am about longing. Sharing this here is my small act of courage for the week.

Posted my first UI on a forum

Spent a weekend redesigning a login page just for practice and finally shared it somewhere public. Two strangers said the spacing was clean. I have re-read those comments maybe forty times. Small wins, big serotonin.

Main bahut saari reels banati hoon apni sketches ki, par kabhi post nahi karti, darr lagta hai log hasenge. Aap sab kaise apna kaam duniya ko dikhane ki himmat jutate ho? Sikhna chahti hoon, chhupana nahi.

Wrote 40 wedding-invite lines today and by number 32 every word looked fake. How do you creators refill the tank when the sentences stop feeling like yours? Asking as someone one bad line away from a nap.

The algorithm is my toxic situationship, one week it loves me, next week it ghosts me completely. Spent 6 hours editing a montage that got 40 views while a lazy meme did 12k. Note to fellow creators: don't let a number app decide your entire mood, easier said than done, I know.

12 views, 9 were me

45 saal ki hoke I started making baking reels and my daughter had to teach me what a 'trending audio' even is. My first video got 12 views, 9 were probably me checking it. But today someone from Ludhiana ordered a cake because of it. Never too old, bacho.

my first ever freelance rupee

made 40 rupees on my first freelance poster and i've never felt richer honestly. client asked for '3 small changes' that turned into 17 but hey, portfolio piece na. any junior designers here — do you also undercharge and then quietly cry?

50 subscribers and honestly it feels bigger than any exam mark I've gotten. My parents think streaming is 'time waste' but 50 strangers chose to hear my voice, and that's not nothing. Slow grind but the small numbers feel loud when they're yours.

I started teaching four mohalla kids to carve wooden blocks on Sundays, no fee. Two of them already carve cleaner lines than I did at their age. If this craft is going to survive me, it will be through their small hands, not my worry.

40 views, 39 were my ammi

My very first saree reel got 40 views and I'm fairly sure 39 were my ammi refreshing the page for me. Two years later a total stranger in Nagpur ordered because of a reel. Consistency is boring and unglamorous and it absolutely works.

Best art review of my life

Started sketching strangers at Law Garden every Sunday. One old uncle selling gajra let me draw him, looked at it for a long time, then bought me chaas without a word. Best review my art has ever gotten, honestly.

posted my first fan art after hiding my sketchbook for years and got exactly 3 likes, one from my mom. and you know what? felt like a whole stadium. slowly learning that making the thing matters more than the numbers. character development fr.

Started filming my amma's old Mangalorean recipes on my cracked phone so they don't die with her generation. The fish curry got 40 views. To me, that's 40 kitchens I might have saved.

I write small Telugu poems in the back of my anatomy notebook when the day gets too heavy. Nobody has ever read them. Posting one here soon will take more courage than my whole viva, honestly.

Last week I read my Konkani poem aloud at a small gathering, hands shaking like a schoolgirl. A young man came after and said his late mother spoke like that and he had missed the sound. That, children, is why we make things, to hand someone back a piece of their heart.

I sketch anime-style portraits of my hostel friends and give them away, too shy to ever charge money. One friend framed hers and it made me feel like maybe I am actually okay at this. Trying to believe my art has value even when my marks feel like they do not.

Started my baking business at 39 when everyone said it was too late to start anything. Now I have regular orders and a WhatsApp full of blurry photos of my cakes at parties. To anyone starting a small thing late in life, do not wait for confidence, it comes after the first order, not before.

Posted a video of my kaju-free Mysore pak at 6am, went to drop my son at school, came back to 400 saves. Ten years my paati made this quietly for the whole street and got zero 'likes'. Times change.