Save the date, Mumbai

From new art exhibitions, festivals, concerts, old shows revived and fresh acts — Riddhi Doshi lists all that is in store for the city in 2026

Music

Save the date, Mumbai

1. Haazri, a tribute to Ustad Ghulam Mustafa Khan

When: January 17

Where: Jio World Garden

Celebrating Padma Vibhushan Ustad Ghulam Mustafa Khan’s legacy, four of his celebrated proteges AR Rahman, Hariharan, Sonu Nigam and Shaan will perform on the day.

“We have designed this evening as a journey. There are special segments featuring Rahman performing with Hariharan, Sonu with Shaan individually, followed by a Sufi set by Rahman,” said Rabbani Mustafa Khan, Ustad’s son. He and his three brothers Murtuza Mustafa, Qadir Mustafa, Hasan Mustafa and nephews Faiz and Zain Mustafa, all musicians, have curated a piece as well. “This festival is our way of celebrating Ustadji’s life, teachings and his unparalleled contribution to music,” he added.

Khan (1931-2021) was an Indian classical vocalist from the Rampur-Sahaswan Gharana, celebrated for his mastery of Hindustani classical music and versatility across genres (khayal, thumri, ghazals). “Our guru lives inside us forever. I feel his presence. He left a family for me in the form of his children and his students. Performing together for Haazri, will be an emotional experience,” said Nigam in a press release.

2. Tinariwen India Tour

When: February (date yet to be finalised)

Where: Not determined

The India Jazz Project, designed to bridge Indian and international jazz and blues, is bringing to India the Grammy-winning Tinariwen band to perform in Mumbai in February.

The band from Mali, West Africa, was formed by the musicians of the Tuareg nomadic community in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Their music blends traditional Tuareg melodies with electric guitars, often called desert blues. Their songs in their language Tamasheq are about exile, identity, resistance, and life in the Sahara.

3. John Mayer Live

When: January 22

Where: Mahalaxmi Racecourse

For the very first time, John Mayer, a seven-time Grammy-winning singer, songwriter and guitarist, will perform live in the city, belting out some of his global hits such as Gravity, Your body is a wonderland, Slow dancing in a burning room and others.

4. Anoushka Shankar Chapters Tour 2026

When: February 1

Where: NSCI Dome

The globally renowned sitarist Anoushka Shankar’s performance in the city is a part of her Chapters Tour 2026. It celebrates 30 years of live performances by the artiste, featuring music from her acclaimed trilogy Forever, for now, How dark it is before dawn, and We return to light, exploring themes of beauty, peace and light.

5. Raag-on Tour; Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy Live

When: February 8

Where: Jio World Drive

Kajra re, Gallan goodiyan, Pretty woman, Zinda, and so many more. The trio of musicians Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy has given Bollywood some of its most popular dance numbers. Their concert in February promises to be high-energy.

6. Def Leppard India Tour

When: March 27

Where: Jio World Drive

The iconic rock band was inducted into the coveted Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2019. They will bring their music to India, singing their powerful anthems that have featured in their 110-plus million albums sold worldwide. It’s time to sway to Pour some sugar on me and Photograph.

7. Matt Schofield and Eric Gales at Mahindra Blues

When: February 14 and 15

Where: Mehboob Studios

British Blues legend and Hall of Fame guitarist Matt Schofield and Grammy-nominated Eric Gales from Memphis will perform at the Mahindra Blues Festival. The line-up includes Altered Five Blues Band, a Milwaukee blues powerhouse, and Shemekia Copeland, performing her R&B fusions.

Theatre

8. Vasant: Gujarati theatre festival

When: March 13-15

Where: NCPA

The National Centre of the Performing Arts will host several Gujarati theatre performances at this three-day festival, the details of which are in the process of being finalised. Apart from plays, there will also be spoken word and poetry performed by established Gujarati theatre personalities.

“Regional theatre is the heartbeat of India’s cultural expression, and at the NCPA, we see it as our imperative to nurture and elevate these rich traditions,” said Bruce Guthrie, head of theatre and films, NCPA.

9. Yeh Hai Bombay Meri Jaan

When: January 3

Where: Prithvi theatre

It’s a play rooted in Mumbai, surrounding five men, or dreamers, who have come to the city to fulfil their dreams. They live in the same house as roommates, and while dealing with the struggles of the city form a special bond. “The play traces their journey while keeping Mumbai at the heart of the story,” said Hanif Patni, vice president of Nadira Zaheer Babbar-founded Ekjute Theatre Group. He will also play multiple short roles in the play.

The play was first staged in 2013 and has since had 500-plus shows across India. “The drama about dreams, a mega city and five friends have resonated with audiences across demographics, for they see themselves or people they know in it,” added Patni.

But it’s the climax that hits the hardest. A Parsi gentleman named Mr Bombaywalla asks audiences if the migrants here have ever considered Mumbai of their own. While they have complained about it for being fast-paced and difficult, have they ever thanked it for the successes and opportunities it has earned for them? So many people spend decades here, yet they will never say they are from the city. They will always name the cities or towns they were born in as the place they belong to. “This play is trying to question why that is, and remind people to be grateful to the city of dreams,” said Patni.

10. Wicked the Musical

When: March 12-29

Where: NMACC

The Land of Oz will arrive in Mumbai this March. Wicked, among the world’s most popular musicals that have been seen by about 65 million viewers across 16 countries, will be staged with over 100 cast, crew, and orchestra members, to present what is believed to be a great spectacle.

11. Chanakya

When: January 26

Where: Royal Opera House

Director, actor Manoj Joshi’s celebrated play Chanakya enters its 37th year with over 1,700 stagings across India. The historical drama about the ancient Indian strategist, philosopher and economist Chanakaya who founded the ruling principles of the Mauryan Empire, focuses on how a ruler must govern a nation.

“The play takes you to the world gone by, yet establishes a direct connection to contemporary times,” said Joshi. “It prompts the audience to contemplate what power is, who is a good ruler, and why he should not be self-centred, not forwarding his agenda but shouldering the weight of the struggles and challenges of his people.”

The play, while connecting with the audience emotionally and intellectually, offers a lesson in politics and just governance. “It reminds people that whether it was the Mauryas or Krishna and Ram before that, the great rulers of this country have always put their subjects before themselves and worked for the greater good,” said Joshi. Chanakya taught Chandragupta to be a just, kind and benevolent king. His treatise Arthashastra is centred on these principles. The performance educates viewers about the ruler they deserve and must seek.

Art

12. Satish Gujral: A Century in Form, Fire, and Vision

When: Last quarter of 2026

Where: NGMA

This large exhibition celebrates artist Satish Gujral’s centenary year and his seven-decade-long practice as a painter, sculptor, muralist, architect, and thinker.

The exhibition’s curator, Kishore Singh, said: “In his centennial year exhibition, I locate him as an artist whose work spanned the entire period of nation building across the 20th century, and several mediums.” The exhibition includes his works on Partition, those he painted in Mexico while on a scholarship in 1952, the Emergency, Indira Gandhi’s assassination that led to the Delhi riots, and his memories of Jhelum, now Pakistan, where he was born.

“He was an artist who was deeply concerned about what was happening around him. But he was impaired in hearing since he was eight, hence did not participate in these conversations around him,” said Singh. He worked from the solitude of his studio, reflecting upon the world as he saw around him, the aftermath of political violence, and its impact thereafter. “He was not a page one writer of a newspaper but a columnist,” said Singh.

In 1999, at the age of 79, Gujral had an ocular transplant. His works then for some time were about incandescent lights going out. But just after two years, he reversed the surgery to return to his world of silence.

His last works were more colourful and happy, about his family, grandchildren and his memories of the Jhelum.

13. Prabhakar Pachpute on the Impact of Mining

When: January 8 to February 21

Where: Experimenter, Colaba

Artist Prabhakar Pachpute has critically examined the impact of mining on both the environment and human lives for more than a decade. Lone Runner’s Laboratory presents panoramic landscapes, shaped through introspection while assimilating findings of the visits to mines, mining and agricultural museums; farms and barren landscapes; farmers’ protests, rallies, and demonstrations; and sustained conversations with miners and farmers. The show is a part of the Mumbai Gallery Weekend.

In his one-man show after five years, he presents 30-plus sculptures and paintings made with unbaked clay, wood carvings, stone powder, and sleeper wood used for the railway tracks. “After a long pause reflecting on the minefields and dystopian landscapes I have created so far, I now turn inward anew, towards spaces shaped by haunting shadows, tempered by quiet optimism that invites introspection,” said Pachpute.

In a series of paintings and sculptures titled Museum Menageries, Pachpute reflects specifically on the characters that have shaped his panoramic landscapes over the years. It uncovers how individual experiences and people bear the weight of broader power structures.

Among this series of paintings are images of a labourer spraying pesticides across farmlands offering a man-made container of intoxicated water; a fully wrapped human body; the cast shadow of a dead calf urging a mother to continue milking; fossilised wildlife; and a morphed human–animal figure, partially clad in gumboots, resembling a barrel with the headlights and smoke, its raised hand signalling a call for rescue.

14. Mithu Sen on Selective Seeing

What: January 8 to mid-February

Where: Chemould Prescott Road

After eight, artist Mithu Sen will present her solo exhibition which brings together drawings, sculptures, videos and performances.

The exhibition explores blindness not as a medical state but a political condition—”shaped by selective seeing, curated truths, and collective denial,” said Sen. In a world where social media edits reality, where militarism frames vision, and where comfort replaces conscience, sight becomes unreliable, and blindness becomes systemic. The show is an invitation to unlearn the visible. A call to recognise the violence of what has been erased “by design”—and to confront the unseen worlds we continue to shadow, added Sen.

In the seven-panel work The Blind Leading the Blind, reclaims Netherland’s renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Blind Leading the Blind (1568) not as a historical parable, but as a living political condition. By fragmenting the original single tableau into seven panels, the work disrupts linear narrative and refuses a singular point of view.

Across the panels, layers of fragmented violence unfold. Some gestures reference specific incidents; others remain deliberately generic, echoing how violence circulates as spectacle, statistic, or an isolated case. A thin, fluid gold thread runs through all seven panels—at once connective tissue, nerve, fault line, and wound, binding the figures into a shared destiny.

15. Weaving flowers, Wandering stains and Floating silks

When: For two months from January 10

Where: Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum

A solo exhibition of artist Archana Hande, curated by Tasneem Zakaria Mehta explores the themes of colonial manipulation of identity and culture. Her work presents complex textile histories that have been the foundation of cities such as Mumbai. It also comments on civilisational changes and aspiration to emulate the coloniser.

Mehta indicated to our leaning towards fair skin. “The public engagement with fair skin is such an unfortunate legacy from the British,” said Mehta. “It’s one of the examples of how we emulate the oppressor because they are in power.” Hande’s works are focused on such colonial stories, the textile mills and industry.

One such is Weaving Light, where Hande places jacquard loom panels in a tent-like structure through which a beam of light streams in. “It’s a magnificent work that tells the story of workers made to work in extremely difficult conditions and that of weaving in the colonial times,” said Mehta.

Hande has also researched Mumbai’s mills extensively, which features in her work.

16. Ticket, Tika, Chhaap; The art of the Trademark in Indo-British Textile Trade

When: March 1 onwards

Where: Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum

This exhibition is a composite of information, trademark and advertisement all at once. It portrays how the textile ticket became the face of every bale of cotton cloth, making its way from the British mills to colonial markets in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Curated by Nathaniel Gaskell and Shrey Maurya, the showcase features textile tickets from the Museum of Photography (Bengaluru) collection, photographs, paintings and printed ephemera of the colonial trade.

17. Global Stone Tools gallery

When: Mid-March onwards

Where: CSMVS

As a part of the ongoing Ancient World Project, at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, the gallery is scheduled to open in March, showcasing some of the oldest tools used by the human kind. These date back to a few million years until 10,000 years ago. “These are some of the most exquisite examples of the earliest hand-made,” said Joyoti Roy, assistant director projects and public relations. “Just how we don’t leave our homes without our mobile phones, people then always carried their stone tools, which were used for killing, de-skinning, etc.”

The star object of the display is the chopping tool from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, Africa, loaned by The British Museum. It’s made from a basalt stone cobble, a hard rock which required consistent, skilfully applied blows with a stone hammer to remove flakes and create usable, sharp edges, explains Nilanjana Som, curator at the CSMVS. “In a wider context, this is early evidence that the humans did not just pick up a stone and use it, but understood its material and form and carved a tool that can be used to their benefit,” she added.

As we evolved, these tools were also exchanged for trade, and stood for social hierarchy and cultural shifts, marking the beginning of the intelligent species, the hominids who soon came to dominate the planet.