Hobbies Once, Careers Today

Nibedita Panda wrote her first poem, a free flowing one, when she was barely 14 for an inter-school poetry writing competition. She went on to win the first prize. Encouraged by her teachers and her father’s professor colleagues, she decided to keep dabbling in poetry till she realized that something was amiss in what she wrote.
“See who arrives now? Oh yes! The silence, to trigger the right responses, to wring me with it’s (sic) ring, until I focus and structure my dream,” are lines from the poetry ‘Confessions of a Fragile Mind’ which she wrote before taking up a course in poetry writing.

“I could feel that something was not right and decided to take a course which has helped me immensely. I learned the techniques like how to frame a verse, the structure of the poetry and the perspective of the subject I am writing about,” says Panda, an MBA who is now a full-time blogger.
“This course has given me an insight into the correct use of words, the use of metaphors and how to connect with the reader. I don’t think these courses hamper your style. I feel they help you fine-tune your talent,” says Panda.
What culinary art was to the 80s, fashion designing was to the 90s and graphic designing was to the first decade of 2000, content creation, standup acts, poetry writing, rapping and box beating is to the current decade. Encouraged by the success stories of YouTubers, many in the smaller cities are tapping their talent and honing their skills in these crafts.
Utkarsha Wankhede, a BBA student first took the stage for a stand-up act during a cultural festival hosted by her college. “I used to write these acts as a hobby and my first performance got me a lot of applause,” she says.
But the second act at a café fell flat as she was nervous before an alien crowd. “When I saw a course for standup acts on Instagram I decided to enrol on it,” says Utkarsha who idolizes Kapil Sharma, Zakir Khan and Veer Das.
These courses don’t come cheap. A session that can stretch over four to five weeks can start from Rs 6,000 and go upwards. But what is taught is immeasurable for these newbies. “I learnt about the lineup, delivering punch lines, evoking laughter and also how to engage with the audience. This is valuable as I intend to take up comic acts as a career,” adds Utkarsha.
With content consumption at an all-time high and social media offering ready platforms for launch, there is no limit to what the youth today are pursuing and their hunger for experimentation.
Farheen, an adventure trek leader, is already enrolled in an offbeat undergrad course on travel and tourism, perhaps the only one of its kind being offered by a city college. She is now also learning graphic design.
“It was during Covid when no activities were happening that I began to design flyers and creatives as part of my tourism course. I was doing it on Canva — a popular graphic designing web app — and used other tools like Adobe Illustrator. These were very basic. The course I enrolled for teaches me the nuances of designing in detail and helps me visualize a concept in a better way.”
“The youth today especially those pursuing humanities is looking at occupations where the audience is global and is present digitally,” says Harshda Kamble who teaches graphic design. “After Covid one concern is to be able to work from home. Graphic design has a very vast canvas and provides many career options,” she says explaining the popularity of the course.
Avenues for self-expression are also driving the young to sharpen their skills at writing verse and prose. “I was going through a bad patch in life and was pouring my heart out on Quora. I used a poetry writing app which helped me write one-liners which I would expand. A workshop conducted by Dark Room Poets made me realize that poets could also be groomed,” says Monish Zade who runs a family-owned business.
“A course in poetry writing has helped me learn the various genres of poetry, crisp writing and how to shorten the length of a line or verse,” he adds.
An admirer of rappers Tupac Shakur and Divine, 19year Smit Gedam has enrolled for a course in rap and beatboxing. “When I broke up with my girlfriend, I was trying to vent my feelings through rap. But I could barely go beyond four lines. Now with this course, I can write a paragraph,” he says.
Working to make music his profession, Smit jams with his friends every night to practice the structure, rhythm and delivery of his verses. “The course has helped in adding to my vocabulary and there are tasks given which help me improve my performance,” he adds.
The courses are also getting traction as now millennials as parents are liberal when it comes to the choice of careers for their children. Also, the kids today start at a very young age.
“These new-age parents are also consuming a lot of content and they understand that money can be made through these careers,” feels Husain Rasheed whose EdTech company Unboxing Art runs many such courses.
“Two decades back engineering and medicine were the most preferred career. The mindset was that artists don’t earn money and so there was no infrastructure for pursuing such courses,” says Rasheed who tried searching for mentors and struggled to find one when he started writing poetry.