A mother, wife, daughter-in-law, and a painting artist, Seema Godawat dons multiple hats. She picked up her passion for painting again many years after her marriage and she is definitely an inspiration to all those women who had to stop pursuing their interests after their marriage.

Seema is working as an artist at Khush Art Gallery and Art Studio, Udaipur.

Born and raised in Mumbai, Seema was interested in art from the beginning. She and her brother both were interested in painting. Her brother always encouraged her to pursue her art and whenever she would be asked to lend help in household chores he would come to her rescue.

After her marriage, she settled in Udaipur at her in-laws’ house. She says that hers is a joint family and looking after everyone in the family and doing household chores was very challenging. She got too absorbed in fulfilling her duties as a wife, mother, and daughter-in-law to pursue her interest in painting. But she would teach her art to her children.

But she realized after her children had grown up that she wanted to do something for herself. She talked to her husband and children and they all supported her. She also acknowledges the role that her sister-in-law played in her picking up painting again. She says that her sister-in-law looks after the family nicely when she is at the art gallery.

Seema shares that when she got to know about Khush Mali- the owner of Khush Art Gallery, she went to her and started learning painting from scratch. She always wanted to learn oil and canvas paintings but could not, owing to her marriage. She learned these forms of painting after joining the art studio.

Seema thinks that a woman can motivate and support another woman better. She says that women should be encouraged to pursue their interests.

She says painting is about carving your imagination on the canvas. Painting calms your thoughts down and brings mental calm.

To students who want to learn painting, she advises that they should pursue it only if they’re interested in it and not just because their parents want them to do it. She also advises parents to let their kids pursue what they are interested in and nudge them to do painting only if they are interested in it and if they are interested in it, it will show in their paintings too. Besides, you should not force your children to perform academically well and never compare them to other children.

She thinks that it’s very important to have the right guru in life and she considers herself fortunate enough to have found Khush ma’am as her guru.

Seema shares that she had plans to display her paintings at an exhibition. But owing to the Covid pandemic, she could not do that. During the pandemic, she did paintings at home only and polished her painting skills.

To the youth, her advice is along with pursuing your hobby you should have a backup plan too. So that in the event of your hobby not materializing, you can fall back on your backup plan. And you should focus on your studies too along with your hobbies.

Seema’s message to all parents is that educating your daughters is not enough, you should encourage them to stand up on their own feet too.