Brat girl summer is over and swamp princess fall is here. It's time to return to the woods and forage for fungi. This isn't a metaphor. India's first mushroom festival literally wants you to be friends with our mycelial peers. Shroom Sabha is a 4-day festival organized to cultivate a more profound connection to ecology through mushrooms. The festival is an exploration and a celebration of mushrooms and their role in what Shroom Sabha calls a 'human-fungal symbiosis'.
Taking place in Wayanad, Kerala the festival ground is the Periya Reserve forest that surrounds Oxyfarm resorts. Home to thousands of tropical, evergreen and decidious trees, the forest is filled with rare, endemic and endangered flora fauna and fungi supporting rare animals like the Travancore flying squirrel and the Malabar gliding frog. The reserve is also an excellent bird-watching spot with over 266 species along with a variety of butterflies including the largest butterfly os South India.
"We are seekers, cultivators, foragers, and dreamers converging from bustling cities to misty hills. Here, we celebrate the seen and unseen, honoring fungi as decomposers, healers, and teachers. "Shroom Sabha
If you do decide to be a swamp princess and attend the festival, you'll be staying in eco-friendly palm & stone cottages and served wholesome meals prepared from fresh, local produce in one of the 'hottest biodiversity hotspots' in the world. The events in the festival include a Reishi tea ceremony, a workshop on mushroom identification, a screening of a documentary about the ethnomycological traditions of the Khasi and Garo tribes and a performance by Indian fusion electronica band MOSEIK, among others. And that's just day 1. There's also a mystery room, a mushroom apothecary, a panel dicsussion on psylocybin and psychedelic mushrooms and much more over the course of 4 days.
Mushrooms are considered superfoods with a plethora of benefits. They're an important part of the ecosystem and have been used in healing since ancient times. We also recently featured a design studio that is experimenting with mycelial leather in making furniture if you can imagine that. If the fungi kingdom fascinates you and you want to immerse yourself into the possibilities that mushrooms are capable of, Shroom Sabha is your destination.
The festival takes place from October 4 to 7. Check out the schedule and book your tickets here. Watch an after movie from last year's Shroom Sabha below.
If you enjoyed reading this, here's more from Homegrown:
'Mushrooms Of Uru' Is A Unique Homegrown Guide To Bengaluru's Fungi Ecosystems
From Infused Coffee To Cordyceps: Alchemy Dose Is Tapping Into The Benefits of Mushrooms
Grow Your Own Organic Oyster Mushrooms With 'Grow The Funguy'