Intimate gatherings around music, conversation and craft are drawing a new generation of audiences to floor seating and slow listening
On a recent evening in Mumbai, a roomful of people sat cross-legged on white gaddas in a crumbling cotton mill that once smelled of industrial damp but now had hints of mogra and attar wafting through. Chandelier floor lamps stood where massive iron spindles once did, and carpets hung where powerlooms rattled.
There were no strobes, barricades or crowds craning for a glimpse of someone very small and famous on a very large LED screen. Instead, about 150 people sat close enough to watch director Vishal Bhardwaj drift between cinema, music and verse, pausing in between to tell stories about feeling intimidated during his first recording with Lata Mangeshkar or attempting the jazz number ‘An Evening in Paris’ on harmonium and tabla.
Across Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Jaipur, Lucknow and Ahmedabad, mehfils and baithaks — those unhurried gatherings where audiences sit close to the artist and listen to music, poetry and storytelling — are making a comeback.
There were no strobes, barricades or crowds craning for a glimpse of someone very small and famous on a very large LED screen. Instead, about 150 people sat close enough to watch director Vishal Bhardwaj drift between cinema, music and verse, pausing in between to tell stories about feeling intimidated during his first recording with Lata Mangeshkar or attempting the jazz number ‘An Evening in Paris’ on harmonium and tabla.
Across Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Jaipur, Lucknow and Ahmedabad, mehfils and baithaks — those unhurried gatherings where audiences sit close to the artist and listen to music, poetry and storytelling — are making a comeback.