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Confident Niya Rose Paulson

She won the ‘Young Indians, Yi’, race along with Nandakumar from PSG College, Coimbatore. The two were up against 23 teams and 46 students from different cities across India. And the race, five cities in four days, was tough. Flagging off at Delhi the teams were taken to Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and finally concluding on the beaches of Goa. All this in just four days. “We were given a clue and Rs. 1,000 for each day. Our mobile phones and luggage were taken care of and we were left to fend for ourselves.”

“Delhi and Kolkata were really tough as we had a language problem and kept getting lost. Following the clues there was not easy. In fact till Chennai we were trailing and never thought we could win.” The two had to display some gruelling fitness levels which according to Niya, her team mate was excellent at. “He did the rock climbing and other such physical activities while I was the planner and executer of the mental problems that we had to solve” Like throwing an egg from ten feet height, wrapped in a handmade casing of straw for it not to break. “I can’t believe that it did not break but that’s what really got us back into the game.”

Chennai was an easier experience being a familiar city. Two hundred metres on sand had to be covered using their own resources and Niya and Nandakumar used a crate and a chair to do so. Clues in Goa saw them stacking hay bundles in a truck that took them to the final destination, on the beach of Hotel Mariott, where she was declared winner.

She said, “I now believe I can do anything in this world.”

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