Music, art and belonging: A festival takes root in Aarey Forest

A month ago, I turned to Instagram to ask fellow Mumbai residents for recommendations on things to do in the city that didn’t involve cafés or bars, sensory overload, or spending unreasonable amounts of money on experiences that can feel hollow. I was imagining nature walks, community gatherings and spaces that make you feel part of something. Did such spaces even exist anymore? While many offered suggestions, almost as many asked me to share the recommendations. It was a telling indication of how urgently city dwellers seek third spaces: places that are neither home nor work, within a hypercapitalist, consumer-driven urban life.

A week later, I came across news of a pay-what-you-want music festival set to unfold inside Mumbai’s Aarey Forest within the Sanjay Gandhi National Park. It felt destined. The three-day gathering was organised by Seeds of Banyan, a volunteer-led collective whose roots trace back to the Save Aarey movement in the later 2010s, when many of its members first crossed paths while protesting the felling of hundreds of trees for the Mumbai Metro project.

“Everything in this world runs on money, but we believe there are different kinds of wealth, like ecological and social wealth,” says Sagar Singh, 32, a member of the collective. He speaks of the widening gap between forest life and city life, especially for children growing up with little contact with nature. For Singh, a Mumbai-based environmentalist and sustainability practitioner, it is paramount, now more than ever, to learn from indigenous communities whose world view sees forests, animals and humans as part of the same living system.

The Aarey Music Festival was one step in that direction, bringing together local artists, city residents, members of the Save Aarey movement, and the forest’s own communities. Held from 12-14 December at an amphitheatre in Unit 5 of Aarey Milk Colony, a space that had until recently been neglected and often used by city dwellers as a place to drink and dump waste. “It had basically become a dump yard,” says Singh. Members of Seeds of Banyan tracked down the owner of the amphitheatre, who welcomed the idea of using the space for a larger purpose. Weeks were then spent clearing out the garbage, after which local artists transformed the walls with murals and motifs drawn from both urban and Adivasi worlds.

The amphitheatre became both a back drop and a foundation for days of music, art, culture and conversation. Despite having lived in Mumbai for most of my life, it was here that I witnessed my first-ever tarpa performance. Dancers moved in widening circles around a musician playing the tarpa, a wind instrument traditionally used by the Warli community. There were classical instrumental performances layered with birdsong. Drum circles followed, along with skits and short plays, while a performance by children from the Inodai Waldorf School in Andheri introduced me to eurythmy (a form of expressive movement). Across forms and genres, every performance returned to nature as its starting point.

A documentary screening of Beyond the Conflict by Atharva Raut shifted attention to the worsening human-leopard conflict in Mumbai. During the Q&A with Raut, the audience listened closely as Prakash Bhoir, a prominent Adivasi activist, laid out his perspective: “People might say, ‘I’ve seen a leopard,’ but the truth is, the leopard has likely seen us far more often. We can’t complain that it’s in our house when, in fact, we’re in theirs.”

Workshops ranging from origami and Warli art to art expression, beatboxing, b-boying, and flow art were open to all. While women sat crocheting with friends, children and first-time learners moved easily between sessions. What felt especially refreshing was how accessible everything was—not just across age groups, but across classes.

On Day 1, I attended the origami work shop and encountered an unexpectedly diverse mix of participants. A man in his 50s had travelled from Pune and was engaging with origami for the first time. When I asked if crafts interested him, he smiled and said, “Everything interests me. I’m always looking for new ways to learn about stuff.” Then there was a mother-daughter duo who had flown in from Dubai. “We don’t have anything like this there,” the mother said. “Everything’s too manicured, too tied to brands and money. There’s no dirt or soil my daughter can engage with, like here.”

For Jatin Shah, 44, a Mumbai-based artist who conducted the origami workshop, art has long been a way to engage without antagonism. During the Save Aarey movement, he used origami as a form of protest. “We’ve never been into aggressive slogans,” he says. “Art allows you to express what you believe in without looking down on the other side.” Behind the amphitheatre, amid dense foliage, both children and adults tried slacklining, moving slowly across a narrow line as sunlight filtered through the canopy. Nearby, women from Aarey Forest sold hot vada pavs, bhakri and vegetables along with herbal teas.

Across conversations, a deep longing for community kept surfacing. For Aasthaba Jadeja, a Mumbai-based MA student at HSNC University, the festival stirred memories of childhood visits to Aarey with her family—to worship at forest temples made not of concrete but of stones and trees, and to wander through seasonal streams during the monsoon. What stood out most to her at the festival was the silence. “I haven’t heard a single horn in three hours, despite being outdoors,” she said, adding that daily commutes in the city often leave her with migraines. “Being here also means spending time with like-minded people who care about the same things as me. It feels good to belong.”

Additionally, as Mumbai’s air quality worsens each winter, putting people back in touch with the environment serves as a reminder of what is increasingly at stake. It is easy, in conversations around “development,” for those in power to see Aarey as an empty green expanse waiting to be repurposed into metro carsheds and wider roads, at the cost of encroachment and residential rights. This has played out time and again.

While we’ll always need protests and dissent to fight the fight, celebrations like these can be just as potent. Over three days, the Aarey Music Festival drew over 700 attendees operating on a voluntary, donation-led model, with free workshops open to all. The gathering returned attention to the forest as a lived, shared space—an understated yet powerful form of resistance. Even though the festival has ended, the amphitheatre is set to continue serving the city.

Seeds of Banyan plans to open a library on its first floor, housing nature-centric books, along with a study space for students seeking quiet amid greenery. Regular workshops are also part of the collective’s long-term vision. In a conversation before the festival, I had asked Singh what he hoped people would take away from the festival. “A sense of homecoming. A return to a part of ourselves that we often forget in the rush of city life.” He paused, then added, “The pandemic reminded us that breath, water and food matter. We promised we’d cherish life more, but we’re a species with amnesia. We seem to learn nothing from history. A festival like this is also about waking up. Some people are aware, empathetic, and compassionate. Others are still asleep. Those of us who are awake need to gently wake the others.”

Tarang Mohnot is a Mumbai-based independent journalist who reports on travel, adventure and environment.