This Brand Is Out There Shouting To Artists That It’s Okay To Be Misfits In The Society

Have you ever read the story of a crooked tree? He hated himself because he wasn’t like the other trees; thin and tall. However, he was saved by his crookedness while the woodcutter cut the tall, thin trees. This is a little story every misfit in the society should read.

Jhalak Doshi is one such misfit whose speech therapist made her read this story and she says “I feel this story has set the tone of my life because, after years of self-loathing for being a misfit, I realized that everything that was different about me was actually my strongest weapon.”

Cut to college, she spent a lot of time interning and freelancing with various companies. It all came down to one realization for her. She was a misfit in the corporate world too.

“But I did not know what direction to follow, so I began to drift. I started doing things that were calling my soul.”

As soon as she graduated, she went on to complete a 10-day meditation course in Vipassana in Igatpuri and lived in an Ashram for a month for Naturopathy. Things had started to work out for her and she landed up getting a job in a café in Ahmedabad. After working for a week or so, she reckoned it was a false sign.

“It was then that I finally gathered the courage to go on my first solo trip to the mountains in September 2016. This was the trip that changed my life. From understanding myself better, to creatively finding solutions by myself when stuck, to running out of money, it became a trip of massive self-discovery.”

It was a couple of broke days in Old Manali when she realized she could work while traveling. She has always been inclined towards art and that strongly reflects in her personality. She started talking to businesses there, painted wall murals for a hostel for free food and free stay, painted a couple of other places to get by.

“Towards the end of this trip, I realized how amazing it was to leave a part of me in my art wherever I went. This feeling was a high in itself.”  This was when she started to get direction in her otherwise purposeless life and ideas started to flow in her head.

“I’d always been different. The lifestyles that made sense to my family or my friends suffocated me, so I knew I had to get out of that space. I feel like my travels were often dominated by escapism instead of exploration.”

Living in Mumbai suffocated Jhalak and so she was running. “Escaping from the city. I met a lot of remarkable people and experienced several beautiful emotions.” After a little more traveling and painting around, she came across the idea of tattooing.

“Just like I left a part of me in the places I painted at, Tattooing could give me the same feeling except for this time, with people.” She went ahead and researched on tattooing, learned a basic course from an Artist in Mumbai. The first person she tattooed was she herself.

While her Tattoo practice was on, she kept promoting her wall murals. A friend she’d met on her first solo trip was starting a hostel in Mumbai, Basti, and he hired her to paint it. That was her big break. With happy clients and intrigued audiences, she gave her best to Basti and then moved to Goa for her Tattoo Apprenticeship. During this time, she started Algaari Arts as a brand for all the work she did. She partnered with a writer/filmmaker that she’d also met on her first solo trip. They together put their company out there, networking with different entrepreneurs in Goa. No efforts went in vain. They got another hostel painting project in North Goa, Woke Hostel, and that was another milestone for the brand.

“As far as tattooing was concerned, finding clients who are willing to get inked by a beginner is among the toughest challenges in the field. But thanks to my supportive friends and family, it wasn’t that bad.

As of now, we’re traveling and tattooing, collaborating with different freelance artists and taking filmmaking(ads and documentaries) projects to spread art around. Our brand is based on the philosophy that ‘Earth without ‘art’ is just EH’.”

Their future plan for Algaari Arts is to create a platform for various freelance artists to get opportunities for the work that helps push the society forward.

It all comes down to letting all the misfits of the world know, that everything that makes them different is actually their strongest weapon. Always remember, what is normal to a spider, is chaos to the fly.

Meet Algaari Arts on Facebook and Instagram.