What could be better than finally completing school and chasing your dream career? Everyone wants to, but sadly that is often not possible. Although becoming successful and established in any profession is arduous and challenging, being an artist or a fine arts student in Bangladesh has its own unique struggles. Here a few of the problems they face regularly:

PARENTAL SUPPORT

Parents want what's best for us, but they can't help but be a little sceptical when it comes to supporting their children pursue a career as an artist. They want you to get a job which is more financially rewarding, secure, and is considered more respectable by our society's standards. Most parents tend to see their children's artistic talents as merely a hobby, a topic only to be brought up when showing off their kids to the 'pasher baarir bhaabi' and comparing them to 'omuk bhai er chele/meye'.

LACK OF RESOURCES

I myself had chosen Art and Design as a subject for my A levels and to my misfortune, there weren't many art teachers to choose from when it came to private teachers for coaching classes. I personally found them rather unprofessional and ended up not getting the required guidance which made sitting for the exam quite difficult. You can't really find any resources to get yourself through the exams and get a decent score because most of the information on the internet is geared towards foreign students and their curriculums.

THE 'GIFT ME YOUR ART' DILEMMA

Friends and family (or basically anyone who comes to know about your art skills) ask you to just give them your art for free or with negligible compensation for all your hard work. This can be quite infuriating and embarrassing since in most cases, they make these requests in very public settings and all you can do is nod your head unwillingly to avoid an awkward situation, while you die a little inside. They also happen to think it is their right to keep asking you to do things for them that require artistic or creative abilities, not taking into account the time and labour that goes into it. You are bound to oblige to these requests, otherwise your 'hobby' is deemed useless.

DIFFICULTY FINDING ART SUPPLIES

It is practically impossible to find professional quality art supplies here as the majority of the materials found in art supply stores are unpredictable in quality. There isn't enough variety in the brands of paint, paper, brushes, etc. You might occasionally have the misfortune of wading through traffic to get to these faraway stores in order to buy those expensive tubes of paint, only to take them home and realise that they have expired and are hence unusable.

Even after all these struggles, the young artist smiles and paints away, it's all worth it because they're getting to do what they love.

Afsara spends most of her time drawing Pepe in various color combinations while singing along to EDEN. Do not bother her at facebook.com/afsaraakhan