You can get lost in the solitude and quietness at Fireflies among the trees and the surroundings which includes a lake. It is nestled in a small, sleepy village of Dinnepalya, 30 kms from Bangalore, on Kanakapura Road. Fireflies is a secular, earth spirituality ashram.

On February 23, Fireflies looked like the venue of a rock show. The amphitheatre, the venue of the festival was packed, people were peering over shoulders and watched the performance with awe and verve, from moon-rise to sunrise.

‘Bhoomi Jaathre’ (Earth Festival) is in celebration of the divinity of Mother Earth.

Every year ‘Bhoomi Jaathre’ has a theme, this year’s theme happened to be tribals and the importance of learning from them.

The fest began with ‘Nadaswaram’ followed by Kaman Singh and group who played Portuguese and Brazilian music about the commercialisation of Mother Earth. R K Padhmanabha on veena drew crowds. 

Shabnam Virmani, the folk filmmaker and Dipta Bhog enriched the audience on the richness of Kabir’s simple spirituality and his strong message of the presence of the divine within. 

Next to come on the stage was Emergence, a fusion band from Auroville, Pondicherry, playing jazz on the veena and Carnatic on the guitar. Okkiyotan exalted tribals and their music, people bought their CDs impromptu.Their songs and music, a blend of Oriya and Bengali, was little understood in this part of the country. Glen Rogers played a solo on the classical guitar. He left the audience spellbound. He finished in modesty and style, ``If you like the music so much, you can take me home.’’

Bharat Qawali Group, dressed in traditional attire, raised decibels and stopped people who wanted to go to sleep at four in the morning. It was Sunday morning when Salim Bhai made the audiences stand up and dance.

Moon Arra, Swaratma and 777 played till 6.30 am, as promised. The chief guest was Cyriac Joseph, the Chief Justice of Karnataka.