On Monday morning I went to the post office since I needed to send two important documents to the India Art Foundation. The counter is usually managed by a white, middle-aged woman with flamboyantly painted fingernails. She’s a German speaker, though she’s also fluent in Italian. This time, however, there was a younger man I’d never met before, closer to my age, clearly an Italian speaker. When he heard me conversing with my partner and child in English, he intuitively made the switch so that we could communicate more effortlessly. After asking routine questions related to the business of sending my documents, as he was processing my order, he asked if I was an artist.

He must have made such an inference after glimpsing the envelope’s addressee, an arts organisation. I was momentarily silenced. I generally refer to myself professionally as a writer. I felt unsure about claiming ‘artist’ as a vocation, especially given how terribly I paint or the fact that I once even failed drawing. But my conscious mind reminded me that I have successfully created art on multiple occasions.