Treble in the village: See what sets the Big Bang! Festival of love apart

Nanadisa has sat where it is, a village in the mountains of Assam, for over 500 years. In addition to offering a platform for independent music from across India, Big Bang aims to celebrate Assam’s culture and indigenous ways of life. The founders of the festival — Daniel Langthasa, a musician and political activist, and his wife Avantika Haflongbar, whose label Roohi works to preserve traditional Dimasa textiles — say Big Bang began as a way to spark connections between Dima Hasao district’s many different communities, both ethnic and linguistic, in a time of rising polarisation. He took his sound system to the first edition of the Big Bang festival that year, and went back every year until the pandemic. What he admires most about Big Bang, Dalmia says, is that it invites people from across the country to see how viable a simple, agrarian life could really be.