Profiling 15 Creative Collaborators As They Travel Across The North East With RTX 2.0

“Travelling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” – Ibn Battuta.

The beauty of the road is in too many things to document clinically-- the freedom, the adventure, the company and the experience, plus everything in between. As RTX (Road Trip Experience) 2.0 brings all these aspects together for the second time, a group of 20 people (15 artists and collaborators along with organizers) travel to three States in the North East to reawaken their artistic processes.

These 15 artists, musicians, photographers, designers, illustrators, writers and collaborators on this journey will explore Assam, Meghalaya and Nagaland to meet local artistic and creative people in similar fields to expand their horizons and challenge the limits of their work.

As the founder of RTX, Jay Ahya, shares, "The aim is to create new age conversation spaces for the new-age creators to meet, connect, create and collaborate. We believe conferences today are very 1.0. We also believe in the power of collectives and creating communities around creators to nurture their ideas where they can grown and shine."

From attending NH7 Weekender, to collaborating with music prodigies and tattoo artists in Nagaland, to explore the mask makers in world's biggest river island to cliff-jumping in forests of Meghalaya, they seem to have covered every conceivable thing through this experience.

With organisers Jay Ahya, Piran Elivile and Nikhil Kashyap, these travellers are setting out for the experience of a lifetime on October 13, and we can't wait for the artistic collaborations this experience will give birth to. Scroll on for the profiles of the 15 travellers, and their thoughts on the thrill of the road.

I. Abhishek Choudhury | Creative. Foolish. Monkey.

"For me, the road is a river of stories."

II. Amélie Briant | Honest. Human. Free-spirit.

"For me, the road is the way to have several lives in one."

III. Anita Isola | Rice. Rasam. Poppadoms.

"For me, the road is a tranquilizer."

IV. Brindaa Lakshmi|Love. Hope. Energy.

Brindaa is a writer, and spreads herself across the various fields of copywriting, journalism, fiction writing and script writing. At the age of 11 she began writing poetry, and went on to writing screenplays through college with the hope of becoming a development journalist. Her first job found her writing copy, and she soon edged further towards her true love, fiction. Eventually, she ventured into the world of journalism, and became a tech business journalist.

After being a freelance writer for some time, she currently makes a living by heading marketing and communications for a start-up in the space of virtual reality and neuroscience. This trip would be her first to the North East, and she aims to create, collaborate with other artists from the various States, and learn about what keeps them going in the chaos surrounding their States. Through this journey, she's looking forward to capturing stories of people, places, characters, inspirations, love and hope.

"For me, the road is the pathway that you lay for yourself to live that experience called life! Your life? You better lay that road!"

In February of 2015, Brindaa travelled to the Andamans by herself to get her open water scuba diving license. This story was one that meant something to her, because unlike other travel experiences where she found herself travelling to run away, this one was to find and bring her back home. "Now that was a lesson worth remembering through ten lifetimes!" she exclaims.

V. Charan GP | Inquisitive. Rebellious. Upbeat.

Charan thinks of himself as a connector, and firmly believes that collaboration is the mantra for innovation and development. This serial entrepreneur started his entrepreneurial journey with a Herbal drink company. Later on Charan started an International Trading Company called Glassrock Traders based in India and the US along with his partner.

"My passion for the freethinker community led to the creation of Outontrip, which is a community/ecommerce store that caters to freethinkers," he shares about yet another entrepreneurial venture. He is also the Program and Expansion manager at RTX 2.0.

"For me, the road is a journey of self-discovery."

This journey of self-discovery has been a long and varied one for Charan. As he tells us about one of his most interesting travel experiences, "Inspired by Tim Ferris, author of the four hour work week book, I travelled across five countries over a period of 17 days with a total budget of Rs. 90,000 which covered shopping, airfare, stay, adventure and so on.

It was a travel experiment to do inexpensive international travel." As this experiment was successful, Charan continued his pursuit of adventure on the Jagriti Yatra -- a train journey for 15 days across India that visits 12 cities meeting influencers and social change-makers.