Thirty-five-year-old Aastha Katyal no longer wakes up with anxiety about traffic snarls or arduous production meetings. Instead, her mornings begin with a quiet stroll, observing birds and butterflies, the curve of a wing or the texture of a leaf, forms that find their way into the clay she shapes at her pottery wheel. For over a decade, Katyal lived in Mumbai, working as a creative producer for leading television channels and web series. Until 2024, her life followed a punishing rhythm: wake up, rush to work, rush through the day, return late, watch television, fall asleep. “The last few years were particularly difficult,” she says, “I wasn’t at peace in my marriage. No matter how much I tried, something felt amiss.” At the same time, an old cyst (she was diagnosed with neurocysticercosis in 2015) triggered seizures in 2020-21. It was her mother who suggested pottery. Katyal enrolled in a neighbourhood class. “It was the first time I felt what I created was mine, only mine.” Soon she bought her own wheel. By 2023, her …