№ 01
The Nilgiri Roots Festival
A day given to the people, culture and living heritage of the Blue Mountains, envisioned by the Collector of the Nilgiris.
- Where
- The Nilgiris
- When
- 16 August 2025
- Guests
- —
- Kind
- Festival
The brief
The Nilgiri Roots Festival was envisioned by the Honourable Collector of the Nilgiris, Smt. Lakshmi Bhavya Taneeru, as a platform to celebrate the region's indigenous communities, cultural identity and living heritage.
The ask was recognition rather than display: indigenous voices on the main stage, and somewhere the district's heritage and a contemporary audience could meet in the same room.
The ground
More than forty-five stalls of local and tribal handicraft, set around a full day's programme of cultural expression, traditional craft, music and community participation.
The stage was dressed in bare branches and dried leaves rather than drapes — the hills brought indoors — with a photograph exhibition running alongside the main programme.
The day
Speeches from the podium, live music from the afternoon on, and certificates presented on stage to the participants.
What the photographs keep returning to is the cloth. Black, red and white, worn by the people it belongs to, in a hall arranged so that everyone else had to look at it properly.
