People: Making light out of darkness

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When 25-year-old event manager Siddhant Agarwal was put on indefinite leave from his company during the first wave of the pandemic, it took a severe toll on his mental health, leaving him feeling like he had no purpose, and nothing to wake up for. He left Delhi and went home to Bareilly, feeling lost.

“It genuinely was the first time in my adult life that I didn’t have any work to do, no projects to look up, nothing to keep my mind off things. I’ve always been one of those guys that feels guilty for not working more even after putting in a 12-hour work day, so I felt really unsettled and insecure,” he shares.

Unfortunately, bottling up all those feelings for over a month led to something much worse.

“It was late in the night and suddenly I felt breathless, almost as if someone was choking me. I went to the rooftop, sat there till sunrise, then had a chat with a friend and told them what I was feeling. They told me that it sounded like an anxiety attack. I had never experienced anything of that kind before. I didn’t feel like eating and barely slept for almost a month,” he says. “It took me a good while to start feeling better about myself and the situation. That’s when I decided that I couldn’t go back to that zone ever again.”

And that’s when Project Hope was born.

Down to a tee

Siddhant wanted to do something that would help people like him and send a message of solidarity out into the world. Since travel was restricted, he made a list of all the places he wanted to go, and declared that if he couldn’t go, a black T-shirt named Hope would.

Why black? Well, like most millennials, it was Siddhant’s go-to colour. “I’m known amongst my friends to specifically wear black T-shirts as if it is my work uniform,” says Siddhant. “The design is a reflection of what I felt during that one month of suffering from anxiety; one side represents the bad experiences in life and the other represents the good ones.”

The T-shirt is on a mission to travel across five continents, 10 countries, and 13 cities. It has already been to Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Los Angeles, New York City, Canmore (Canada) and Nice (France), and is currently in Amsterdam, scheduled to leave for Berlin. But, as a “project in evolution” there will definitely be more cities added.

The T-shirt has already been to seven countries
The T-shirt has already been to seven countries

How does it work?

The tee is sent to a creator or a vlogger in the nearest city. After receiving the T-shirt, the creators work on a timeline, a storyline and script for a video. They’re also sent a few stencils, which they use to paint one of their own black T-shirts to make a replica. (This was done so that they don’t have to wear the same T-shirt.)

Then the creator puts their signature on the back of a letter that is sent by Siddhant, and is asked to add something significant to their country as memorabilia for the project.

How does this spread the message of hope? “From what I gathered during the pandemic and initial lockdowns, people wanted to travel, they wanted to grow, they wanted to learn. And for the first time in history, everyone felt the same way,” says Siddhant. “So, this T-shirt represents everyone who wanted to travel the world and felt something remotely similar to what I felt during that one month.”

Shirt of the future

This project is set to go to Berlin, Cairo, London, Barcelona, Mumbai and back to New Delhi. “The fact that an idea came out of a moment of darkness, humbled me. It shows what sheer desperation can do,” says Siddhant.

So, what comes next? “Now, we’re trying to come up with an entire streetwear label, connecting apparel, content and storytelling, just like I did with ‘The Traveling T-shirt’.”

Follow @modwel on Instagram and @UrveeM on Twitter

From HT Brunch, April 30, 2022

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