0035bengalurus first female firebartender talks about her journey so farbartending especially fire bartending has always caught peoples fancy and smriti singh bengalurus first female firebartender has an inspiring story to narrate she is the first female bartender in the city to inculcate fire and flow art forms into her skill of serving drinks the 27yearold first started a fire flash mob three years ago during deepavali to promote the cause of not bursting firecrackers and theres been no looking back ever since in a candid chat with bangalore times smriti takes us through her journey so far excerpts not an easy feati began fire bartending at a point of hopelessness and despair in my life i needed to pay off my college loan while my profession of a sport climber had just hit rock bottom after an ankle injury thats when i took up a course on flow bartending freelancing in bartending was an easy way to earn some quick money but experimenting with different elements has always been a habit says smritihowever networking for it wasnt easy she adds getting clients who would trust me with the skill set i had to offer was difficult fire bartending is still relatively new in the city and acquainting my audience with the performance at different venues took me a while on one occasion my hair caught fire which made me extremely careful thereon starting from a minimum charge of 2000 i now earn up to 50000 for one event she shares an initiative to stop pollutionsmriti has also helped start an initiative that brings likeminded people together to collaborate on flow arts every deepavali to raise awareness about the environment i decided to start this initiative three years ago when i personally detested the bursting of fire crackers the professionals who are involved in this project aim to discourage people from using firecrackers during the festival of lights the group puts up a fire flash mob every year on the day of the festival in order to stay true to the spirit of deepavali without actually causing pollution she explainsinspiration to otherscitybased artiste and footballer tushal kamaraj started flow arts after being inspired by smritis skill tushal started practising flow arts after suffering from a knee injury sharing the same perspective as smriti on the profession he says fire is an element that were closely associated with while others see it primarily as a symbol of danger we have a different perspective of it altogether the unique aspect that separates us from other artistes is that we also make our own props hansysanctistimesgroupcom