Friday Evening (11 July, 2025) at the Lalbhai Dalpatbhai Museum

Playing with the Goddess

Gavri of the Mewar Bhils

A talk by Aditi Ghosh Mehta (Author & retd. IAS officer)

About the Talk:

The Bhils of Mewar undertake a joy-filled and colourful 40-day ritual every year. The fun, jokes, humour and dance are all undertaken within a gruelling and arduous skeleton of strict even monastic austerities which are imbued with piety and reverence. This is the Gavri, danced in villages for sisters who have married away, and danced to create a cultural commons within the minutiae of every-day life, where the aims and aspirations of the dancers (Khelyas) seek the well-being of the community. Where everyday life has to deal with the urgencies of survival and livelihoods, Bhils annually regenerate their collective consciousness through celebrating and upholding universal verities and dance to themselves through the Gavri.

Date: 11 July, 2025 (Friday)

Time: 6 PM to 7:30 PM

For ages: 18 and above

Venue: Lecture Hall, L D Museum

*Tea will be served at 5:30 PM

For registration, please contact:

Call: +91-9408536883 | WhatsApp: +91-7863040584

About the Speaker:

Aditi Ghosh Mehta encountered the Gavri thirty-five years ago when she was posted as a young IAS officer in Rajasthan. Ever since then she has gone to witness the Gavri, as it travels to different villages, and documented its form, and the lifeworld of the Bhils who perform it. These three volumes are a labour of several decades, and express a devotion to this civilizational form and lived moral cosmos of a group that is otherwise well known as one of the most economically disadvantaged communities in India. Even as most Bhils find themselves working in India's precarious informal economy as daily wage labourers the Gavri still continues. These volumes are dedicated to its continuity with the prayer for the possibilities of a life fully lived, within and outside the Gavri, for the Bhils.

« Back to All Updates