A Public in Performance

This year’s festival kicks off with a performance of Sawal Jawab, directed by Girish Datar and featuring Sukanya Gurav. It traces the intertwined histories of Tamasha, Lavani and Shahiri, which have played a crucial role in shaping modern Maharashtrian identity by giving voice to social realities, dissent and popular culture. Emerging from folk performance traditions, they combined music, dance, poetry and satire to address themes of caste, gender, labour and power, often speaking directly to working-class and marginalised audiences. Their performers challenged social norms while creating spaces for collective entertainment and critique. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Tamasha and Lavani also influenced urban theatre and political expression, particularly in Maharashtra, helping forge a cultural identity that is assertive, expressive and deeply rooted in lived experience.

The performance will be followed by a conversation with Tamasha historian and photojournalist Sandesh Bhandare, setting the tone for a programme rooted in dialogue between performance, archiving and scholarship.

The Loom of Time

From performance, the programme turns to Mumbai’s media collectives and the layered histories of its centrally located, working-class neighbourhoods. Cinema, poetry, painting and labour history converge in a screening of Saacha (Loom) by Anjali Monteiro and K. P. Jayasankar, featuring the work of artist Sudhir Patwardhan and poet Narayan Surve, whose birth centenary is marked this year. The discussion the filmmakers that follows reflects on collaborative media practices that emerged after the textile mill workers’ movement of the 1980s, and on the making of the DiverCity archive.

Caste in Caricature

Questions of representation and resistance take centre stage at the iconic Siddhartha College Library, which grew out of B. R. Ambedkar’s personal collection of books. This session examines colonial-era caricatures of Dr. Ambedkar through a discussion with author Unnamati Syama Sundar, author of the book No Laughing Matter: The Ambedkar Cartoons, 1932-1956, and Professor Vijay Mohite, concluding with a stand-up performance by Ankur Tangade that bridges historical critique and contemporary expression.

'A many-coloured smell'

Midweek, poetry spills out into the streets with a two-part exploration of the Clearing House poetry collective, which featured poets and painters such as Arun Kolatkar (a graduate of Sir J. J. School of Art) and Gieve Patel, along with Adil Jussawalla and A. K. Mehrotra. On 11 March, a walking tour through Kala Ghoda begins at Churchgate Station, led by Bombay Poetry Crawl. Later that evening, poet and translator Jerry Pinto reflects on the collective’s collaborative ethos at the historic David Sassoon Library in the Kala Ghoda neighbourhood, tracing how writers, painters and designers shaped a shared literary culture.

Birds of a Feather

Nature writing and illustration come into focus at the Bombay Natural History Society (B. N. H. S.), where journalist and researcher Vrushal Pendharkar explores the community behind the B. N. H. S. Journal through the work of artist and illustrator Carl D’Silva.

Faith in Form

That afternoon, we will head to Our Lady of Salvation Church in Dadar, to revisit architect Charles Correa’s modernist vision for sacred space. Through a conversation between architect Nondita Correa Mehrotra and poet-curator Ranjit Hoskote, the event reflects on faith, architecture and art, with M. F. Husain and Anjolie Ela Menon’s glass paintings and tableaux on view at the Church as well.

Tracing Stone and Shadow

The city’s ancient past emerges on 15 March with a guided walk through the Kanheri Caves, a remarkable complex of over one hundred rock-cut monuments dating from the 1st century B. C. E. to the 10th century C. E. Carved into basalt cliffs, the caves served as Buddhist monasteries, prayer halls and centres of learning along ancient trade routes. Intricate carvings, stupas and water-management systems reveal a sophisticated monastic life sustained by surrounding communities. Over centuries, the caves witnessed shifts in religious practice and patronage, before being rediscovered by colonial archaeologists, today standing as a powerful testament to Mumbai’s deep, layered past. Led by archaeologist Suraj A. Pandit, the walk explores the social life of the Buddhist community at the caves, followed by a participatory mapping exercise with students from Sathaye College.

The Citizen-Artist

The festival concludes on 16 March at the Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture and Environmental Studies. Through archival material and a conversation between the artist Navjot and curator Nancy Adajania, the session examines the public art interventions and political activism of Altaf and Navjot in 1970s and 80s Mumbai, situating artistic practice within wider movements for social change.