Kick-off Holi celebrations by making your own hues with the tribals from Aarey

With Holi around the corner, make your own hues from flowers and soak in the festive spirit with the tribal community of the forest

What can be a better way to usher in the festival of colours than in the midst of community and the green environs of Aarey? At experience designer, traveller and visual creator Shreya Valecha’s upcoming Holi edit, participants will get to do that and more, by getting their hands dirty as they make their own eco-friendly colours from scratch.

Participants learn about the forest during an experience with Valecha

The festive edition of the Aarey cultural experience is created in collaboration with the resident tribal community, shares Valecha. The experience draws from Valecha’s own explorations in the urban forest and the tribal community’s lifestyle. “I’ve been in touch with the community for a while. The idea is to get people to bond with each other through hands-on activities, so they can absorb the local culture,” she tells us. The session will take place inside a Warli pada in the forest, where visitors will be welcomed with chai and a festive sweet made from rice flour and coconut that’s prepared by the tribal community.

“Participants will also get to make the sweets themselves; they will be guided on how to cook on a chulha. We will proceed to make organic colours with flowers found in the forest with Manisha Dhinde, a tribal resident,” Valecha informs us. The flowers, collected from across the forest, yield different hues — for instance, orange from palash, dark green from bhringraj, magenta from tanoli, among others.

Shreya Valecha

The session will wrap up with festive-special snacks prepared by the community. Through the session, the curator hopes to help participants explore a different side of Aarey, and find a reason to leave the comfort of their Sunday morning snooze for a dose of festive fun.

On: March 5; 8 am onwards (reporting time 7.45 am)
At: Aarey Forest, Goregaon (exact location to be shared on booking)
Log on to: @shreyavalecha on Instagram
Cost: Rs 1,650 per person

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