Brushing off Covid: From old hobby to a skill!

Ajay Joshi

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, May 9

Age is certainly a number for Reena Gupta, a Jalandhar-based 50-year-old woman, who has started revisiting her hobby of painting to keep herself occupied amid the pandemic stress. At a time when women of her age are unlikely to give wings to their dreams, she took a leap forward to revist her old interests.

Her bio on the social media account reads, “Just trying my hands at painting after 26 years.” Fearing to slip into depression, she revisited her hobby of painting in the beginning of 2019. By the time pandemic knocked onto our lives, she regained her flair for giving colors to her imagination.

Also it is just a coincidence that the Covid-induced lockdown gave her a sense of ‘being independent’. While facemasks have become a basic necessity in these trying times, she adds a pinch of her dyes and crayons to make them look more vibrant.

“Starting second innings when you are about to cross half century of your life doesn’t seem like a cake-walk. However, it is not impossible too. With this thought, I started practising my old hobby. Before, marriage, I used to do oil-painting and wasn’t even remotely acquainted with water-painting. I started coloring canvas to begin with. Now it’s been two years, I paint daily,” said Gupta, who once felt ageism is huge.

She goes on to say, people of our age are more likely to get into depression, when our children get married or busy shaping their career. Keeping ourselves is busy to avoid any health issue.

Since July last year, when she started painting masks and begin to share them on her social media accounts, she has sold over 700 masks till now. In the beginning she got customers through word of mouth mostly, but now she gets orders from Delhi, Pune, Mumbai and other states.

Starting an online store is often the easiest way to get your feet wet, she adds. Reena learnt to use Instagram to share her creativity or receive orders. A resident of Deen Dayal Upadhayay Nagar she runs her account with the name ‘Brushes and Strokes’.