Indian Woodstock : Sneha Yatra and the Birth of India's Underground Sound

.“If you remember Woodstock, you weren’t there.” The quip is often used to sum up the chaos and euphoria of that defining 1969 weekend in upstate New York. But Woodstock wasn’t simply a music festival, it became a shorthand for a generation’s pursuit of freedom, peace, love, and a haze of psychedelia.

While the West was being reshaped by Hendrix, The Beatles, CCR, and the Velvet Underground, India too was experiencing its own cultural ferment. Traditions met experimentation, and in 1971, on the outskirts of Mumbai in Malavli, a local gathering called Sneha Yatra was born.

Unlike anything the country had seen, Sneha Yatra was a kaleidoscope of sound and spirit. Bands from Calcutta, Bombay, and Pune; Country Funk Revival, Atomic Forest, Twilight Zone, Brief Encounter took the stage alongside The Savages, Windfall, Human Bondage, and others. It wasn’t just about Western rock; Indian classical instruments conversed freely with guitars and drums. Panna Mehta’s guitar echoed ragas, Kumari Mangala’s sitar carried whispered tales, Shekhar’s sarod intertwined with Ashok Bellare’s santoor, all tied together by Uday Raikar’s tabla. Mohammad Rashid Khan and Mohammad Sayeed Khan’s cryptic tribute to Tansen lingered like a spell.

The crowd was as eclectic as the music; filmmakers, writers, engineers, radicals, and students mingled with a surprising number of foreign travelers, who lent an extra layer of colour to what was otherwise a homegrown affair. Some danced themselves into altered states, embracing the psychedelic edge of the decade.

Many of the bands who played that weekend have long since faded into obscurity, their names remembered only by those who were there. Yet Sneha Yatra marked a spark; the stirrings of India’s indie and experimental music movement, a legacy that still burns quietly today.

The years that followed saw other landmark moments: The Police playing Bombay in 1980, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page jamming at Slip Disc in 1972. But Sneha Yatra remains elusive, half memory, half myth. Its details survive mostly in fragments, in the stories of those who were there.

Keith Kanga, Madhu Dhas, Val Lobo and Fred Manricks at Sneha Yatra Youth Festival in Malavli

Musicians at Versatile Creations jamming in between printing Tees for Sneha Yatra Youth Festival

At VC Screen Printing Studio; L-R : Collins Coutinho, Terry D’Abrew, myself, Russell Newby standing, Arun Pathak, Firdaus (hidden)

T-Shirts being printed for the Sneha Yatra Youth Festival. The merch sold out almost instantly; demand was so high that even ill-fitting or damaged pieces were snapped up as prized souvenirs

The larger-than-life Jimi Hendrix poster at Versatile Creations; a major fascination for visitors and regulars alike

Outside the Malavli Guest House, where Pune bands Odyssey and The Invention of Mothers were accommodated