If you’re looking for a bit of inspiration, look no further than Jaipur, India, where Nimisha Verma decided to go against her parents wishes and become an artist. She was only nineteen when she left her parents’ house with her brother Sudhanshu, and in only a year, she managed to pull off creating a safe haven for artists like herself and her brother.

In the interview with ScoopWhoop, she said the following: “When I left my parents house to follow my dreams last year with my brother Sudhanshu, we struggled a lot. For four days we wandered in search of a roof over our head and a stable place to sleep at night. Those four days I can never forget in my entire life. I promised myself I’ll create a place which any artist with hope could call a home. A home for all the artists so they aren’t afraid of nowhere to be when they wish to escape and make art.”

This organisation aims to provide a place where the community of artists can feel safe and just focus on creating – after all, that is what art is all about, isn’t it? There is a daily kitchen schedule: breakfast at nine in the morning, fruits and salad at 1 pm – for lunch, you can “beg, borrow or eat,” and dinner is at 9.30 pm. There is no lunch, because there are a lot of financials to take into consideration, but residents are welcome to go out and buy food.

Home for Artists welcomes travellers, too: if you’re an artists participating in the Rickshaw Challenge, you may want to consider joining this inspiring place for a couple of days – free of charge. Residents who have lived there for a longer period of time have to pay rent, because they have a lot of expenses. As Nimisha described, “We meditate in the morning, then cook, draw, write and sleep together. There are some nights when we don’t sleep at all and keep reading books or discuss some artworks and poetry. Everyday we welcome new artists and travelers to stay with us who share their story and experiences.” In other words, it’s an open, friendly community where you can take time to develop your art.

Nimisha has big plans for the future: she wants to create a university that isn’t constrained to the whims of the education system. As she said, “they won’t come for a degree but to live art with similar creative souls.” She added, “They will learn, teach and stay at the same place surrounded by nature and peaceful environment.”

One thing is for sure: this girl really proved that one cannot go wrong with following their dreams – the only thing you need is determination.

-Tell us a little bit about yourself and why you participated in the Rickshaw Challenge! Have you ever embarked on a similar adventure?

-What did India teach you?

To keep smiling no matter what. The one thing I took away with me more than anything was the nature of the people. They were so welcoming and genuinely interested in what we were doing. People will do anything to help you out. Good karma goes a long way. I will try to be more patient in future and try to do something good for a stranger every day like they did for us.

-What was your most “only in India” experience?

It has to be something to do with the driving, and the lack of logic (ha-ha,) but somehow it works. Also, driving down the wrong side of the road with your lights on to let people know you’re coming: at one point, we missed a turn off on a highway so we did exactly that. Did a U-turn and drove back down the hard shoulder.

-What was the first thing that crossed your mind when you saw your Rickshaw?

– What was your craziest/best experience or moment during the Rickshaw Challenge?

-How many breakdowns did you have (and how did you manage to solve the problem) ?

– Do you have any tips/tricks for future participants?

Day 1

Mumbai Xpress is always an exciting, more adventurous and scenic rally in Rickshaw Challenge calendar. However, Mumbai bureaucracy and guardians of law are tough nuts to crack. From the preparation to assembling of the vehicles for the line up to practice, there were many difficulties, but all of them vanished from the organizers’ minds when they saw the enthusiastic participants. Registration started well on time and there were two teams, Team 4 and Team 6 that came on time. Rest of the teams came in slowly one by one. We had fixed the briefing at 11.30 am. Team 5, Team Jelly joined us after briefing due to their flight schedule.
The teams had 45 minutes of Briefing, which was done by Aravind, lead scientist of the Travel Scientists. The short  briefing came to an end and the teams had a Q&A session. The two rules which need to be followed in India are a) No logic and b) Smile on face. The teams were asked to join for the practice at 2 pm in the designated college ground.
Team 7, Beach Please is made up of three ladies from Estonia – they took a tuk tuk and went to a far off place which supposedly shares the same name as this college. Finally when they found the right place, the practice session has been going on for at least an hour. Few arguments with the tuk tuk taxi driver and finally some practice. Every team had completed about 3 hours of practice and then they were confident on the road.  After that, we met them in the hotel parking lot where they dropped their vehicles off one by one. All teams their first fuelling experience and all of them felt like celebrities as people were waving and cheering them all the way from the Practice Grounds to the Hotel.
The night ended up in a big initiation bash in Gringos bar, which is close to the base hotel Sun N sand.  It was a long night of fun and story exchange.

Day 3

“Road road road” sounds like a classic Rock song to all the Mumbai xpress Participants in the 9 th morning.  The plan is to travel through the hectic traffic of Mumbai and reach a small costal town called Alibag. Aravind made briefing for the day and bid them all good bye.  The support crew started at 12 am and thus far there was no call. In the morning most the teams had costumes did according to their themes.