The transcendental beauty of Ziro village makes the trek to get there worthwhile. Image: Shiva Ahuja/Ziro Music Festival
It takes a certain infallible dedication to travel almost two days to Ziro—a small, idyllic village in Arunachal Pradesh, home to the Apatani Tribe, and now the Ziro Music Festival. A dedication unscathed by a journey in rudimentary buses, across backbreaking kuccha roads, through dark, scary, Ramsey movie-like scapes where bus drivers abruptly stop to take hour long naps. Nor did the threat of heavy erratic rain, ensuing slush and wet clothes dampen our spirits.
Hapuli, the closest town to Ziro Village. Image: Isha Singh Sawhney
There is much talk on the festival website about rolling meadows, pristine blue skies, breathtaking nature, local tribal communities, their foods, and all-too-famous homemade rice beer or apong, which are an integral part of the festival. Never once does anyone say the words "15 hour drive". But the journey is quickly forgotten once you get there.
Ziro Festival—held at the end of September this year—opened with mandatory sarkari schpeel, some good ol' staple rock and roll by Menwhopause (whose band members are also the brain-parents of the festival). The Gurgaon based electro-duo, Maya Moh and Muteverb and the home grown bossa-folk act The Omak Komut Collective, joined the line-up, but it was post-punk Indie rockers The Vinyl Records that had the 1,000 plus local crowd (for whom entry was free that night) mosh pitting to the rasping lead singer, a petite Arunachali Cheyyrian Bark, and her 24-year-old retro-punk band members.
Menwhopause, the 'brain-parents' of the Ziro Music Festival. Image: Shiva Ahuja/Ziro Music Festival
The bossa-folk act Omak Komut Collective at Ziro Music Festival. Image: Shiva Ahuja/Ziro Music Festival
The 1,000 plus-strong crowd braved the elements for some eclectic music. Image: Shiva Ahuja/Ziro Music Festival
Helped on by rice beer, the crowd cheered on the acts into the night. Image: Shiva Ahuja/Ziro Music Festival
The night ended under a sky luminous with a billion stars, and no electricity on the festival's lamps. Heady on copious bamboo glasses of rice beer and millet wine, a strange love for the village took us hostage, inducing smiles plastered across everyone's faces.
My selfie with Tony Guinard of SkaVengers, drinking Apong, rice beer in bamboo glasses. Image: Isha Singh Sawhney
Festival organisers please note: Rice beer is perhaps the best friend you can make at a festival.
It was really only the next day, as weary travellers emerged from their tents or arrived from their homestays in villages across the district, that we realised how charming Ziro Festival had been set up to be. We walked down a muddy path in our mandatory gumboots to the entrance; a black light lit room decorated in neon origami and installations, was the first to greet us.
Much like international music fests, attendees spent the night in tents. Image: Shiva Ahuja/Ziro Music Festival
Exiting onto a large muddy ground circumferenced by happy campers on one side, and the food and drinks stalls on the other, we were charmed instantly by a panorama of low-lying grassy hills, rolling meadows and paddy fields, in every green you can imagine. The cynosure of all this: the main bamboo stage.
The advantage of a single stage festival is inexplicable. Without a Sophie's choice of acts stressing you out, the only decision we had to make was who was going to trek for the next 1 lt bottle of rice beer, pork BBQ, or bamboo steamed fish.
The festival space. Image: Shiv Ahuja/Ziro Music Festival
Our routine for the next three days was set. Plonk down on the grass at the Daanyi Stage (named after the Apatani animistic religion Daanyi Pillo) from 12am to 4pm for the indie-folk, acoustic lineups. Break for an hour. Head to the night stage, Pillo—whose potentially confusing genre jumps (from rock and jazz, to ska and hip-hop)—made our nights unpredictable and exciting from 5 to 10pm. Pretty simple.
At the Pillo stage, listening to Suman Shreedhar. Image: Isha Singh Sawhney
The festival huts offered steamed fish and red chai. Image: Isha Singh Sawhney
Ziro aims to give local bands center stage. Across the three days, we heard the Omak Komut Collective, a folk fusion act from Itanagar, fronted by the head priest of Donyi Polo (who was MIA, but had a stand-in singer Marbom Maro) singing local Adi tribe songs blended with jazz and funk; Itanagar-based Taba Chake, a singer songwriter armed just with his guitar; and the five-piece Rida and the Musical Folks, fronted by the Khasi folksinger Rida Marbaniang to music from the four-string titaru.
The beautiful Tetseo Sisters from Kohima made their mandatory appearance, sans two siblings, to sing and dance Nagaland's oral traditions of Li into our hearts, while Warklung, an Assamese folk pop legend from Karbi Anglong and Rewben Mashangva, a Manipuri folk blues singer, were greeted like local music celebrities.
The Tetseo Sisters from Kohima performed Nagaland's oral traditions. Image: Shiva Ahuja/Ziro Music Festival
But folklore wasn't the only offerings from the Seven Sisters. Aizawl's Freddy's Nightmare came on with a ferocious mixture of rock n' roll, blues, grunge, alternative and punk to adulating crowds and the Mizoram-based lead singer had them eating out of his hands.
Closely matching their high-energy adrenaline-pumping stage acts came the Dimapur based Indie-rock band, We The Giants, Shillong-based indie-pop act Street Stories and Delhi-based Yesterdrive; whose stage act drew much inspiration from bands like Kings of Leon, The Ramones and The Cure.
The mainland threw up electro experimentations with Bombay's Raxit Tewari's immensely danceable solo act Your Chin, the more ambient TankBund from Delhi and eclectic singer/spoken word artist Suman Sridhar from Bengaluru.
Spoken word artiste Suman Sridhar at the Ziro Music Festival. Image: Shiva Ahuja/Ziro Music Festival
Electro pop outfits Ganesh Talkies and Lakshmi Bomb played through pelting rain showers to a dedicated 500-plus strong umbrella-covered audience, while Still Dirty's rock, funk, blues and jazz cocktail came together with all the tightness one would not expect from the unpolished spontaneous, sort of band, Anup Kutty from Menwhopause, jazz grime duo Shridhar and Thayil, and Tony Guinard of the Skavengers, have come together to form.
SkaVengers at Ziro Music Festival. Image: Shiva Ahuja/Ziro Music Festival
And so the four days went by dreamily by, beginings with acoustic gigs from Delhi based crooner Prateek Kuhad and Tajdar Junaid (a multi instrumentalist from Calcutta), till the footstomping of Mad Boy Mink who sent us back to swinging '20s and the SkaVengers who transported us to ska-filled Jamaica from the '50s.
Indus Creed was the festival's closing act. Image: Shiva Ahuja/Ziro Music Festival
Rock and rollers were given a good dose of the Arctic Monkey-eque Superfuzz, Kolkata's electric performers Supersonics, and closing act Indus Creed.
Ziro encapsulated a more than perfect festival experience, putting an essential tick mark on the bucket list. Music festival in breathtaking open air landscapes.