Page 88 - Forbes - India (January 2020)

ForbesLife music
the Clique PhotograPhy
Last year, the festival also brought in standup
comedy. “It just makes sense to have different Comedian
Kenny
entertainment experiences at a festival where Sebastian
there is such a huge overlap of an audience that performs
at the NH7
appreciates both music and comedy. Ultimately, Weekender
it’s a coming together of different artistic in Pune
expressions that are cultural products,” says
88 festival director Kaur. The comedy stage too was
packed throughout as the festival showcased
comedians like Biswa Kalyan Rath, Kanan Gill,
Kenny Sebastian, Zakir Khan and Sumukhi Suresh,
some of whom brought in a different element to
standup through singing, music and mind games.
The festival has been its share of controversies.
In 2018, there was a call to boycott NH7 Weekender
following allegations of sexual harassment against
OML employees. Despite several attendees calling
off their plans to attend the fest and artistes such as
Bengaluru electronica producer Disco Puppet and
New Delhi indie label Azadi Records pulling out,
Weekender survived. “There was very little impact
of the whole controversy in 2018 and it didn’t affect
footfall,” says music journalist Amit Gurbaxani. “In
fact, it was more. As far as I know, none of the artists
even mentioned it on stage. There was this one
person walking around with a placard, that’s all.”
The festival also took up some interesting
“the nh7 weekender has got such a
diverse line-up that those who are
open-minded enough will certainly
find something new to discover.”
Deepak Gopalakrishnan, freelance writer
forbes india • january 31, 2020
initiatives this year. They partnered with NGO
The Humsafar Trust and 6 Degrees to make
the space LGBTQ-friendly, with a safe space on
ground to provide counseling to anyone in need.
Besides, there was the Paper Boat Project, which
aims to build libraries in the remotest corners
of India and attendees could donate books.
A few years ago, the festival partnered with Skrap
to ensure it generates as little disposable waste as
possible. Skrap provides sustainable
waste management solutions for events
and organisations. “NH7 is actually the first
festival where we piloted our end-to-end
waste management project. Each year we keep
piloting new sustainability initiatives. We’ve
partnered with NGO SWaCH in Pune and follow
a decentralised waste management system. We
don’t want to send it out to a facility where we
don’t have insight and control. Everything is done
here, in the backyard of the festival,” says Divya
Ravichandran, founder, Skrap Waste Management.
Attendees were also urged to reuse their cups to
get a discount on their next drink. “We were unsure
whether this would work or not, but over 70 percent
people came back for refills,” adds Ravichandran.
Plastic straws were banned and drinks were served
in rice husk glasses while the food stalls used
compostable cutlery. The festival worked with
Cupable to provide drinking water—people could
purchase one recyclable cup and get unlimited water
refills for all festival days. “Last year we collected
about 10-12 tonnes of waste, out of which over 85
percent was reused or recycled,” says Ravichandran.
Meanwhile, the organisers are already
looking ahead to continue providing a platform
to independent music artistes to showcase
their talent. “Some of us work through the
year to make it happen. We’ve already started
reaching out to artistes for 2020,” says Kaur.
Gaurav Raina of Midival Punditz, who has
been performing at Weekender for five years,
believes festivals like Weekender don’t just provide
a platform. “Weekender and a bunch of other
promoters all over the country are responsible
for letting Indian musicians know that there is a
career in music. Earlier it was not considered as a
career because of unavailability of such platforms.
Today, artistes who would normally not be
musicians full time are taking it up and that’s saying
something good about the future,” says Raina.
Freelance writer Gopalakrishnan agrees. “As a
musician once told me—at Weekender, no matter
who you are or what you play, you will find a
supportive audience. And I think that’s amazing.”