Ziro Festival of Music

Ziro festival of Music is the time of year when the Ziro Valley in Arunchal Pradesh come alive with beats of music resonating through the air. A festival that gather some of the best talented musician of India and Overseas to a diverse audience hungry for some cool music.It is a vibrant mixture of art,music and culture.It is totally community led event and ideal representation of how music can connect people from different demographic and social background. Ziro festival has now become the a”Go to destination for the youngster who want to get high on music.”

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Ziro is located in lower Subansiri district in the state of Arunchal Pradesh. It has been a favourite town for UNESCO World Heritage site . Ziro Valley is beautifully covered with bamboo and pine trees surrounded with paddy fields. It’s home to a very friendly tribal group known as the Aptani tribe. The Ziro Music Festival which happen every year .Founded in 2012 by Bobby Hano and Menwhopause guitarist Anup Kutty.

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I came to Know about Ziro when one of my schoolmate Nupur Das posted here pic in social media regarding her visit to ZFM (Ziro Festival of Music). Since then onward I decided to visit ZFM in coming year and start gathering friend for accompanying me for ZFM. Finally Danveer , Akhilesh Mishra , Tushar Sinha, Pranav Bhadoria and Prateek Mehandiratta joined for that amazing trip.

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Planning ,booking were done and all of us were supposed to meet at Guwahati on 25 September 2019.The trip started in adventurous way for me I had to board my flight from Mumbai to Guwahati on 25 September 2019 at 10 a.m. On the day of boarding it was raining heavily in Mumbai since last night. In morning I hired taxi to airport keeping 3hr as safe time period to reach airport .But it turn out to be a wrong decision .As usual got stuck in mumbai traffic “Aur upper se baarish ne mera trip cancel karne ka pura inteezam kardiya tha.” Thanks to my taxi driver who with his good knowledge of shortcut route helped me to reach airport 30 min prior to flight takeoff time. The security guard in the entrance told me ran fast to last counter .I rushed to the counter submitted my luggage, got security check and ran as fast as i could toward the boarding gate.In the mean time i had a strong feeling that i was going to miss flight and ZFM .

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I landed in Guwahati afternoon ,very soon Danveer also arrived . We had ample time since our train to Naharlagun was only 9 in the evening . So we headed to the waterfront on the banks of the Bhramaputra river had some “Jhal Muri ” and roadside snack . Later in the evening we headed toward the restaurant as we were very keen on sampling some authentic Assamese cuisine. Meantime Jnandip from Kite Manja shared vehicle driver details who was going to drive us from Naharlagun Station to Ziro valley. It was now time to headed toward railway station where i was going to meet Akhilesh Mishra my school buddy almost after 10 year and three new friend Pranav Bhadoria, Tushar Sinha and Prateek Mehandiratta.

Naharlagun Station

Next day early morning we reached Naharlagun , the weather outside was chilling. Naharlagun station is nested in the foothills of Himalayas. The view was heavenly ,station was surrounded by the mountain and mist all around. After getting our ILP(Inner Line Permit) we headed toward our vehicle .

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Finally at 7:30 a.m. we started for Ziro , Apart from few bad patches the road was quite good and comfortable with breathtaking view. We stopped at a place called Potin and had breakfast but the sceneric beauty along the road was breathtaking view with exotic natural beauty of nature. Tushar was overwhelmed with beauty of nature and decided to sit on the top of vehicle and ended up loosing his cap.

The road wind and wind and we kept bouncing on the road ,it feel like an eternity as Yazali approaches we found Ziro Valley is 95km which sign- board indicated.When the valley open up, we felt we were in the midst of misty rolling hills.The swaying paddy field have turned golden and we finally begin to appreciate the wonder of Ziro Valley. Finally we reached Ziro around 1:30 pm in the afternoon,”AYA PA ATOH“

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Hapoli is the modern town in the Ziro Valley and we cross it to make our way across the vedant golden valley. The road in the Ziro run right through the middle of the valley and is flanked on both side by swaying paddy field.

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Campsite Kite Manja

Our Campsite was Kite Manja. It had ample open space,there were numerous sit out made in the form of bamboo and most amazing ” Tree House BAR”. It also had a lobby area where people enjoy live guitar performance with bonfire. There were ample charging point for charging aside lobby section , a bamboo crafted dinning hall , registration /admin section , clean and hygiene washroom .

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There was joyous atmosphere in a camp .The tent were spacious and were in close proximity to each other .Our host (Rahul,Rex and Jnandip)were very generous,cool,funny,exciting and extremely friendly.The staff were very pleasant and helpful.

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The camp had  pleasant atmosphere surrounded by lush green trees with the panoramic views of nature and making us addicted to the beautiful drama that mother nature was unfolding before us and making our every moment a mesmerizing experience.It was all about breathing fresh air, kick starting adrenaline pumping adventure .Its serene and refreshing environs stimulate all your five senses.

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The defining and memorable memory of camp was guitar session in the night over free flowing rice beer , wine and liquor . There were lot of in house guitarist and everyone sung and huddle close to the bonfire for warmth. The crowd swayed to the mellifluous voices of the singer .The chorus continued into the night everyday I enjoyed singing and sweet chatter till morning which indicated that the travelers hadn’t let the bonfire go off all nights.

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Ziro Music Festival

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Ziro Music festival is one of most eco friendly festival where they used bamboo for the construction of the whole infrastructure.There were two stage namely Sun stage (Donyi) and Moon stage (Polo) which were also setup with bamboo. It was four days event starting from 26 Sep 2019 till 29 Sep 2019. The event in Donyi (Sun stage )started at 1 pm and the performance were conducted in Polo (Moon stage), which last upto 10 p.m. Then we used to head back to your campsite for dinner and enjoyed the party scene at our camp.

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Ziro Music festival was an outdoor music festival .One good thing about this festival was that everyone who comes to this festival turns quite open and outgoing and choose to mingle with others .It doesn’t matter if you travel solo or in group , you were bound to find some friend.The talented artist from India and oversea made the audience go crazy specially, “Lucky Ali“. Also the festival goers swayed and danced in the open ground and everybody made friends with everybody.

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Apart from this , there few interesting thing within the arena where such as Hot Air balloon riding,motor gliding, lot of food stall starting from momos, parathas,french fries to BBQ chicken , drinks and shopping stall to get one engaged.

Apatani Village Trip

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Since the performance used to start on day stage at 1 p.m. so on second day we sneak peak to Apatani village to know about their culture ,tradition and their way of life , this activity was organized by the camp along with the guide . Actually , Ziro is an old village of the Apatani tribe. The Apatani are a very interesting tribe . Unlike other tribes , they are non nomadic in nature. They practice permanent wetland cultivation in hilly terrain by slicing the hills.

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Apatani were one of the sweetest community people we had come across. We saw their traditional house , way of cooking technique with bamboo , learnt about their culture and history over cup of tea and lunch and was amazed by their hospitality. We visited Kiwi wine factory and observed the wine making process .The group had lot of fun , joy ,elated and fascinated about knowing Apatani people. Also it was the great way to meet and interact with other traveler of camp who later became our friends for life time.

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Tao Tiibi

The campsite arrange activity for everyday so we joined the group next day for Tao Tiibi trek. Tao Tiibi is home to Roto Pani family , a habitat of this who has been living and farming since 1968.Post our breakfast we headed toward Tarin fish farm which was starting point of trek. An hour’s walk through the jungle took us to Tao tiibi. We were astonished to see the systematic channels and canal for irrigation even in such a hilltop. After spending 2 hr over we return back to our camp . Later in the evening we were at ZFM arena and enjoyed Lucky Ali and other artist concert.

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Adieu ZIRO

Finally we had no idea how the four days of ziro festival went by in a jiffy. My soul was fueled with the passion to live life to the fullest in the moment. Before leaving Ziro Akhilesh quoted ” If you had all the riches of the world, could you buy me a lifetime of days like this?”

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Reference :- Few of the pictures were taken from Kite Manja after their due approval.