Meet the Aussie boys, who are riding around India & Nepal in an Auto pimped up by amazing graffiti artists in Chennai & the result will blow your mind!

The idea grew from a simple phone call back in January, both Alex Anderson & Azza Mate decided that 2017 was earmarked for some crazy travel to places that they hadn’t been to before. Azza had been a part of the “Rickshaw Run” challenge in India 5 years ago & couldn't stop talking about it. Alex was game to participate in the run & as they started planning- a better idea struck them- Why not buy their our own Rickshaw and make their own rally?! They had no clue whether it was possible or not, but they decided to give it a shot! With a bit of online research they found the ‘Chennai Garage’, a business in Chennai that was willing to sell them their very own reconditioned “auto”. After a brief email exchange, and a couple of weeks to convince their loved ones that a 3 month rickshaw journey through India and Nepal was a completely sane and safe thing to do, they put down the deposit!

Having become an auto owner, they decided to make it more uniquely theirs- to put their stamp on it, to stand out from the crowd (because, of course two Aussies in an auto wouldn't stand out at all!) They thought that a custom paint job would be sufficient, and after looking around for options they realized that a conventional painting job wouldn’t cut it. That’s when it hit them, both of them were into HipHop & graffiti, so why not try to find a local graff crew to pimp up their ride? With this in mind they went to almighty Facebook & typed in Chennai Graffiti. Almost immediately they came across T3K, The Third Kind a local graff crew which is part of 108 collective- a unique collective of creative artists bringing art into spaces. They liked their style, and when they stumbled upon this amazing time lapse video of their artwork shot by Niche films, they were sold!

A brief Facebook exchange sealed the deal and Alex & Azza landed in Chennai on Saturday 22nd of July not knowing what to expect.

They picked up their rickshaw from the Chennai garage and then met up with the crew- Akill & Dibs a.k.a Prasanth along with Shrey Flyin Munki Sawant who’d come down all the way from Goa, and headed out to pick out the paint they needed. They had decided on the theme of “Dahlsim” an Indian character from the classic arcade game Street fighter, so color selection was vital.

The next two days were a whirlwind of painting, laughter, eating, joking & immense fun. They hadn’t known what to expect when they asked the guys to paint their auto, but the results exceeded any expectations they had.
It was mind blowing!
Check out the pimped up auto:

They are super excited to kick off their journey on 27th July 2017 from Chennai.They plan to head south from Chennai and follow the coast line to Kanyakumari, then travel up the west coast as far as they can, may be up to Punjab & then head east towards Nepal. From Nepal they plan to travel to Pokhara where we will hike the Annapurna circuit, then Katmandu to Varanasi, finally ending up in Calcutta where they will (very regretfully) sell their rickshaw and move on to the next adventure!
They have a major plan in life and that is to have no real plans, just a dream.
And they are quite living the dream aren’t they? Keep a look out for this cool, arty auto, Azza & Alex may be in your city next?!
Follow 108 collective to check out more on the amazing art scene & stay tuned for updates on their journey!
- Anuradha Subramanian, co-founder of 108 collective.
