17 years old · Founder, Kshipra Creations
He didn't wait to be old enough. He didn't wait for permission. He built Kshipra from a city that has been doing things its own way for three thousand years — and figured that was permission enough.
Mitansh Porwal was born and raised in Ujjain — one of India's seven sacred cities, home to the Kshipra river, the Mahakal temple, and a way of life that doesn't feel the need to explain itself. He grew up with incense the way most people grow up with background music. It was always there. He just never thought about it.
Until he did. And when he did, he noticed something: the thing that has been in every Indian home since before anyone alive can remember — the agarbatti — was being sold as if it was embarrassing. Cheap packaging. Generic fragrances. The visual language of obligation, not intention.
He was 16. He thought: someone should fix this. Then he thought: why not now. Then he thought: why not me.
The city. Named after the Kshipra river. Older than most civilisations. Mahakal is here. The Simhastha Kumbh is here. Time moves differently here — and Mitansh grew up inside that.
The question that started everything: why does something with this much cultural weight look like it was designed by no one, for no one, with no care at all?
Kshipra took shape from months of going deep into India's folk art traditions — Warli, Pichwai, Gond, Kalighat — and understanding not just what they look like but what they mean and who made them and why.
Kshipra is live. Four variants. Four worlds. One belief — that making your space sacred is the coolest thing you can do with a room.
"The river has held stories since before memory. We're just adding ours."
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