story

Foundation course in Expressive and Creative Arts Therapies (FECAT).

Backstory

​Brinda used to teach my girls creative movement and we would bump into each other on Moyenville road where we both lived then. She was a dance movement therapist and I remember asking her if her clients danced during a therapy session. Little did I know.

​Then one day she told me that she was starting a training program in Expressive and Creative Arts Therapies. Actually, she was in search of the samosa shop near our home and I did some small talk which led to this discussion. I designed a few collaterals for the program – brochures, application forms etc. A year later, she asked me if I would do the program. Now I had designed the brochure and should have read the contents. Not to sound like I had done a mindless job at the design, I thought how difficult would a program be that had the words Creative Arts in it. I signed up. And spent the entire year threatening to quit. Little did I know.

The program was a turning point in my life. I did not become a therapist but I came on board as a student advisor. Besides strategy, design, communication, and publicity, I am also involved in the instructional design of the program and setting up and implementing the Learning Management Systems. What I rejected once with my childlike tantrums, I now protect and nurture as a fierce mother. Little did I know.

The pandemic was hard on programs that were deeply rooted in somatic work. But that year in 2020, when we moved FECAT online due to the lockdown, not only did it survive, it flourished and ran to a waitlist. Brinda and I have both moved home elsewhere from Moyenville road, and sometime in early 2021, as I was passing by my old house, I saw the shutters down on the samosa shop. Damn! Did it not make it through the pandemic? I am told that he is on Swiggy now, so yay! Very small things sometimes give immense joy. Little did I know.