How Aarey’s Warli tribe, Cuffe Parade’s Gor Banjara community celebrate Diwali differently

Jamalibai Chauhan shows the essential traditional dress worn by Banjara women on festive occasions, embellished with cowrie shells and mirrors. Pic/Satej Shinde

On a warm afternoon in Aarey Milk Colony's Khambachapada, farmer Vanita Thakre recalls a childhood memory of carving a diya out of mud, alongside other miniature kitchen utensils or bhatukli. Her neighbour, Jaya Davde, sits beside her, as Jaya's young son snacks on chakli. But neither diyas nor farsan will feature in the Diwali celebrations of this Warli community.

"This festival is the most significant for us, and we don't consume any food that is not first blessed by our gods. Diwali is tied to the harvest of rice grains, ragi and vegetables such as chawli [cowpea beans]. It marks the start of the season when we begin eating produce like kand [air potato tubers], ridge gourd and pumpkin," Thakre explains.

The Warlis of Aarey have long taken in pride in ‘tavshi' cucumbers which are consumed mainly during Diwali, as part of sweet and savoury dishes. Pic/Nimesh Dave

At the other end of the city, in Cuffe Parade's sprawling Ambedkar Nagar, women of the Gor Banjara community are excited about ‘Dawali'. Artist and academic Shiva Gor, who was born and raised in Beed's Parli Vaijnath city, clarifies that the name of the festival isn't spelt conventionally simply because of a difference in pronunciation and accent. It's associated rituals also vary from that of the larger Hindu community, says the artist who works out of Mumbai and Delhi. "Our festivities are premised on the gor cultural codes and value systems. Dawali celebrations are deeply connected to nature and the change of seasons. Lakshmi Puja and idol worship were not part of our rituals," he says.

Embedded in their indigenous context, the Warli and Banjara communities look forward to this time of the year for reasons far different from the urbane population. It is a reminder of their interdependent relationship with the environment and the cherished values of generosity and collective progress. These tribal communities treasure their cultural practices, even as exposure to mainstream culture may be altering how they celebrate Diwali.

Diwali celebrations at the Warli pada commence with poojas at the Gaondevi and Waghoba shrines, with male community members offering food to be blessed and an animal sacrifice. Pics/Nimesh Dave

Jyoti Dalvi moved to the Warli pada in Aarey from her parents' home in Bhiwandi after marriage. The 35-year-old vividly describes prayers being offered in her in-laws' lush green paddy fields each year. "In the four Dalvi households in this corner of the forest, the families come together holding produce such as chawli - grown in their fields - in their hands," she says. "We use a long cucumber called tavshi in Marathi, to make a sweet: the outer covering is made of rice flour prepared by grinding the navin tandul [fresh rice grains], and the stuffing comprises grated cucumber and jaggery. This sweet is then wrapped in the leaves of the vegetables we grow and eat,
and steamed."

This ginormous variety of cucumber - three feet long and weighing nearly two kgs - holds a place of pride in Warli households. Thakre, who is in her 40s, says that when she was a child, kakdis were displayed on either side of the entrance of their homes in the village after they were harvested. Now, the residents of Khambachapada don't grow them, buying them instead at their local market or importing them from padas in Gorai and Dahanu.

This sweet, alongside the freshly-harvested produce, is taken to the local Gaondevi Temple by the male members of the village to be offered to and blessed by Gaondevi and Waghoba, a wild cat (tiger/leopard) deity worshipped by many of Maharashtra's tribes, including the Warlis. "Shendoor (sindoor) is applied to the rock figures at the temple, as the men perform a pooja in the late hours of the night," Thakre says. "A lone chicken or goat is left behind in the forest as a sacrifice to appease Waghoba, while meat is also cooked and distributed in the pada."

The moment families most look forward to comes next: As the blessed food is brought home, elders and children feed each other - undoing the notion that only mothers must cook, or that parents solely are responsible for the entire household's sustenance.

The Warlis' lives and festivals are so interconnected to the forest that any environmental change has dire consequences, say farmers Vanita Thakre and Jaya Davde. Pic/Nimesh Dave

Pictures of Goddess Lakshmi, Lord Krishna - even Sai Baba - now find a place at the Gaondevi Temple, where the Warli deities are crags carved from the mountain side, painted generously with sindoor. Photographer, researcher and conservationist Sanjiv Valsan, who works closely with the Warlis, says that the community has not always worshipped these deities; the pictures were placed by settlers who arrived later.

"It would be interesting to know what the original, forgotten tribal sacred stories were behind the Adivasi rituals, and what the name of the festival was before settlers brought in the ‘Deepavali' name," says the founder of the Waghoba Habitat Foundation. "It's also an interesting coincidence that the date of the animist Adivasi rituals - based on forest spirit deities - overlaps with the Hindu Diwali, which is about stories and deities that aren't part of the Adivasi religion."

Thakre and Davde excitedly talk about a stew called ghurkol, prepared using fresh produce and meat, and slow cooked over a wood fire. The Warlis' lives - and the way they celebrate the festival - are so interconnected to the forest that any environmental change has dire consequences. Davde, who must work on her family's rice fields by herself in the absence of male relatives, fears close encounters with leopards at night, and that has put a pause on the crop.

Questions about what the women wear on Diwali - sarees - and the timing of the harvests all lead to reflections on how the forest continues to give, and give, to the Warlis. "Some of the tubers we plant weigh above 10 kgs and can feed entire families; no fancy equipment or fertiliser is needed to grow them. Just patience, and the resolve to dig them out of the earth," Thakre says. "Foraging from the forests and its water bodies has fed generations of our families. I'm certain that our children, too, will continue to honour it for many Diwalis to come."

Cowrie shells fall from a bag as Jamalibai Chauhan tries to retrieve a traditional ghagra from it in her pocket-sized home in Ambedkar Nagar. She holds it up to showcase the shells, mirrors and coloured threads used to embellish it; Chauhan, who is in her 50s, is shy to pose in the outfit unless she can wear the make-up and jewellery that goes with it.

A resident of the Banjara basti, Chauhan and others like Monibai, 50, trace their lineage to Karnataka's Wadi village in Kalaburagi district. She describes the big draw of Dawali celebrations in this corner of Cuffe Parade - an energetic dance performed by young women in the evening, which brings the entire basti together. "Once the girls have put on the lehenga and dupatta, they wear nose pins, necklaces and earrings. They also attach a chotla [braid and bun hair extension] to their hair before they can go off to dance," Chauhan delights in the description.

Rites like the dance performance vary across Banjara sub-communities. A ritual that seems to tie these sub-communities together is ‘mera mangna' which involves women who are of marriageable age or hoping to marry soon. "On Kalimavas, all sources of lights are turned off, even the stoves and chulhas used to cook food. The women hold pantis [diyas] in their hands and walk to the houses in the neighbourhood, making wishes and demands for the people who live there, as well as the animals domesticated and kept by them," Shiva Gor explains.

Another key ritual is agjhad-bagjhad, wherein the abandoned nest of a bird is brought from the forest and burnt; the Banjaras believe that they will be rid of the blindness caused by six sins, such as greed and lust, through it.

Gor adds that the prayers are called dhapkaar and offered to one's ancestors instead of a god; dhap means footprint in the Banjara language. The coexistence of humans with nature is central to their beliefs, defining how rites like godan, navan and the telling stories under the poriya tara (Venus) are performed.

For the Banjaras, Dawali is focused on sanmaan (respect and honour) and hawaman (the seasons and weather). The artist notes that during this festival as well as on Holi, the women of the community play key roles.

Ramu, a father of four, notes that some households in the basti now make puran poli, karanji and puris as part of the Dawali spreads; Banjara staples over the years have been mutton dishes, tarkaari and jowar rotis. "Many of the customs from mainstream society have been incorporated into Dawali, and knowledge about the original rituals is slowly fading," Gor rues. He recalls that lapsi, rice, vegetables and meat would be made in his parents' home during the festival.

Deepa Pawar, founder and director of the women-led Anubhuti Trust and a prominent voice from the nomadic Ghisadi community, says the original values that tribal and nomadic festivals were based on are being impacted by spending - and consumption - oriented aspirational nature of mainstream celebrations. "These attributes were never part of Adivasi culture," she says, "a walk through padas will tell you that tribals don't consume as many resources or spend as much money on festivities. Their conception of happiness and celebration is rather straightforward: it is centred on sharing rather than materialism. The origin of festivals, even the names of their deities, are often rooted in nature and the dependence of their livelihoods on natural resources."

Pawar adds that these festivals are typically premised on the celebration and protection of natural resources and the environment - even the prayers offered on these days convey this focus. Referring to Bali Pratipada, the Nomadic and Denotified Tribes activist points out that asuras and asura kings - which is how Adivasis were viewed - are largely perceived as negative and evil." Often these characters are ‘killed' or ‘slain' by the ‘righteous'. Tribals were the first, indigenous people of India, yet their culture is considered dirty or backward. The notion of slaying asura kings doesn't exist in Adivasi culture," she says.

If the environment they reside in drastically changes, the tribals' ability to celebrate their festivals and take forward traditions itself is affected. "The panic that arises from climate change and global warming - that Adivasis themselves have not contributed to - is real, because of how sacred nature is to them," Pawar concludes.