bengaluru bhagyalakshmi had no option but to oblige her parents when they asked her to get married immediately after her masters in sociology however she did not let her dream of pursuing art die down easilya year after marriage she wielded the paint brush again and now is a winner of many awardsas a girl child my parents priority was to get me married while painting was a hobby it was never something that i could pursue with passion or do full timea year after marriage the creative urge to focus more on art became so intense that i took a call my husband who believed that i had the talent encouraged me to go for classes paint more and learn the techniques of different types of art said bhagyalakshmi 36bhagyalakshmi was one of the 18 recipients of the state handicrafts award which were presented on thursdaythriving creativitycraftworks were on display during the golden jubilee celebrations of the karnataka state handicrafts development corporation at ravindra kalakshetra on thursdaysarojini n yeresheemi 47 who was a software engineer in the us decided to veer off the beaten path when she fell in love with folk art especially the tradition of hase chittara wall paintingspainting was my hobby since childhood i did be computer science and mba and worked in the us for 16 years some friends and family members seeing the paintings i did encouraged me to take part in competitions and thats how it began when i got a fellowship from the culture ministry to research on how folk arts could be preserved for future generations i decided to quit the corporate world she saidwinning laurelsthe other awardees include arun narayan shetty vipin bhadauria n manjunath manohar p badiger chandrika b shivakumar mk iqbal shantha p kamalpurkar s manohar sarojini n yeresheemi b raghunathan ms ravikumar mohammed shafi asha a bilagi abdul khaleel maruthi and bharathi dattatreya hegde