Usta art was something Shokat grew up with. The traditional art formed the basis of his upbringing, and today, he is himself teaching the next generation to keep the traditional art of Usta alive and running.

Shokat Ali Usta is an Usta Kala Artist from Bikaner with an experience of thirty five years.

Shokat hails from Bikaner and comes from a family that has been working in the Usta art field for years. Shokat says that he comes from a middle class family and lived his childhood around this art itself. He had little interest in studies and completed his schooling till the tenth standard. In 1990, he took training in Usta art from Mohammad Haneef Usta from a Usta training center in Bikaner.

Shokat feels that this traditional art is getting lost gradually and that is why he tries to teach the next generation on his own level to keep the art up and going. Till now, he has trained four hundred students in this and has especially trained twenty students under the Guru-Shishya parampara. He has also trained students in many organizations like NIFT.

Advising young artists, Shokat says that the young generation would try anything once or twice and will leave the same if they experience failure. However, he feels that they should not do so and should keep trying till the very end and not leave it midway. Shokat also feels that it has become easy to learn the art now as earlier he had to develop even the colors himself, but now everything is available in the market, making the art a bit easier to learn.

Talking about his hobbies, Shokat says that his art is his only solace and he invests around eighteen to twenty hours a day in Usta art itself.