Seven days across Rajasthan. A nineteenth century miniature painting goes missing on the morning you arrive in Jodhpur. Fifteen travellers, fifteen characters, fifteen private agendas. The clues are real. The craftspeople are real. The havelis are real. The story is the trip.
Most trips to Rajasthan are a loop of the same five photographs. The fort. The blue town. The same gate, from the same step. You leave with a hard drive nobody opens and a story you've told three times.
The Heist is what would happen if you were not a tourist. You arrive in Jodhpur on the morning of Oct 18. In your room is a sealed dossier. A typed brief. A black and white photograph of a missing nineteenth century miniature painting. And a character card with your name on it.
You are The Curator. Or The Forger. Or The Insider. Or The Widow. Or The Journalist. Or any of fifteen characters we've written, each with a private goal and a private secret. Half the table wants the painting found. Half does not. The clues are hidden with real Bundi miniature painters, real Pushkar traders, real haveli families who know the game and play their part. Over seven days, the story plays out across three towns. The ending shifts based on what the group does.
You eat real meals. You sleep in real havelis. You shop real bazaars. You also have a plot to advance, a rival to watch, and a deadline that lands in a Pushkar courtyard on the evening of Oct 23.
From the moment you open your dossier in Jodhpur to the moment the bus leaves Pushkar, you are your character. You can break for sleep. You cannot break for Instagram. Talk to your fellow travellers as the people you've decided to be. Trust who your character would trust. Lie to who your character would lie to. The Game Master travels with the group, quiet, watching. If you forget your name, ask them.
Arrival in Jodhpur. In your haveli room, a dossier waits. A typed brief, a black and white photograph, a sealed card with your character name. Read it alone first. At 7pm the group meets in the courtyard, in costume the haveli provides, and dinner is served. By the end of the night you've worked out who five of the other fourteen characters are. You have not worked out the rest. That's the trip.
A long morning in old Jodhpur. The first clue is with a real brass merchant who has been part of the story for three years. He knows you're coming. He'll only speak to the right character. Some travellers will get the clue easily. Some will hit a wall and have to bargain, befriend, bribe, or eavesdrop their way in. The evening: a private kathputli performance in the haveli where new clues are slipped to those watching closely.
Drive to Bundi. The afternoon is spent with a real Bundi miniature painter, learning the technique used in the missing painting itself. One of you needs this skill to advance the plot. Two of you need to identify a forgery hidden in a stack of paintings in the painter's studio. The painter is in on the game. The painter is also a fantastic painter. The technique is real and the painting you make is yours to keep.
Sunrise at the step well. One of the fifteen characters has a memory the others don't. By the end of the day, two alliances have formed and one has shattered. The afternoon is open: walk the old town, sit in the painter's studio, follow your character's instinct. Evening, the group reconvenes for a long dinner where one piece of information must be passed across the table without the Rival hearing it.
Arrive in Pushkar in the lead up to the Camel Fair. The town is filling with traders from Kutch, Gujarat, Marwar. Anything can be bought. Anything can be discovered. Your character's final move is somewhere in this market. The Insider knows where. The Insider won't tell unless you give them something. What you give costs you.
By the morning of the 23rd, every character has made their move. At 7pm in a haveli courtyard lit by lanterns, the group sits in a circle. One by one, characters are unmasked. The Game Master reads the final scene. The painting is either recovered or it isn't. The ending shifts based on what the group did. We've watched fifteen of these endings. We have never watched the same one twice.
On the last morning, you find out who everyone really was. Their day jobs. Their cities. The reels start. Everyone has a character arc to post. A long brunch under a banyan tree, the painted miniatures laid out on the table, the dossiers signed by every traveller. The bus to Jaipur or train to Delhi leaves at 2pm. You're home holding a painting, a dossier, and a story nobody you know will quite believe.
We won't tell you which character you'll be assigned. We won't tell you how the painting goes missing. We won't share past endings, past travellers' reels, or which haveli holds the final reveal. This is the only kind of trip that gets worse the more you research it. Arrive curious. The story rewards it.
A scriptwriter, a Game Master, three heritage havelis, fifteen custom dossiers with character props, a real Bundi painting workshop, and a network of craftspeople playing real roles in the story. This is not a Rajasthan trip. It is a piece of immersive theatre that happens to be set across three real towns. If you'd like to soft hold a seat without paying yet, write to us and we'll keep it open for 48 hours.
You don't need to be an actor. You don't need to be loud, theatrical, or extroverted. The quiet, observant character is the most powerful character in any heist story. Writers, directors, lawyers who love a good case, founders who like reading rooms, anyone who has ever wished real life had stakes. If you read murder mystery novels and play them out in your head, this is for you. If the words "make believe" make you flinch, Drop 03 might be a better fit.
Fifteen seats. We read every application. The Heist works when the room has fifteen people who will commit to the game. One cynic at the dinner table is enough to break the spell. We pick the room first, on purpose. If you're in, we'll tell you. If you're not, we'll keep your name for Drop 03.