Boond Boond Paani

Storytelling | Dance | Book reading

Boond Boond Paani is a fun and engaging celebration of water through dance, storytelling, and art! Today, we often see water as just something that comes from a tap, a bottle, or a pipeline—but it is so much more. Many ancient civilizations, such as those in Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, and China, flourished near water bodies because of the fertile land and access to water for irrigation and transport.

Inspired by our ongoing exhibition, Cartographies of the Unseen by Reena Saini Kallat, the session will highlight humanity’s water footprint and the need for a deeper, more meaningful relationship with water.

Odissi dancer Devpriya Bihani brings the magic of water to life through movement, while author Minaz Ansari reads from her joyful picture book Paani Party, reminding us of water’s incredible value and the need for a more meaningful relationship with it

Details of the performance:

Through Odissi Dance, Devpriya Bihani will first showcase the earliest migrants that existed who travelled across vast lands in search of a place to settle near water bodies. Eventually they find, settle for many decades before they lose the very resource they held precious due to natural reasons such as drought and the river bed drying up.

In her performance 6 rivers personified in the story as 6 friends - Indus Jhelum Chenab and Sutlej, Ravi and Beas who rejoice in the daily revelry of humans being together on their banks. They are blissfully unaware of the impending doom, when overnight they see these very same people become worst enemies of each other and are aghast and sad at this turn of events.

Through the medium of Storytelling through Dance and Book reading, Devpriya Bihani and Minaz Ansari will attempt to highlight that the River has always been an important source of survival for even the earliest humans, that it knows no borders and that in the relationship between Man and Nature, it is always Nature who is the giver.

About the Resource People:

Minaz Ansari:

Minaz Ansari is an architect, urban researcher and writer. She is the author of the book Paani Party. She’s part of The Dreamers Collective, a research-based initiative, and is a professor at Rizvi College of Architecture, Mumbai. She has also coauthored a research paper on 'The Relationship of Water and Communities in Mumbai' for the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Mumbai

Devpriya Biyani:

With over 25 years of training as an Odissi Dancer and a passion for History, Devpriya Bihani has been able to amalgamate Dance and Storytelling to tell the audience stories of our Heritage, Culture and Communities around us. She has performed at CSMVS as well as prestigious festivals including the Konark Dance Festival in Odisha, Dev Deepavali in Varanasi, the Durga Mahotsav in Mumbai, and in several collaborative productions. She was recently been invited to curate experiences at Kalaghoda festival and Mumbai Literature Live.

Sunday, 23 March 2025 | 11 am–12 pm

Age: 6 years & above

Charges: Rs.100 per participant

Museum entry charges applicable.