November 12, 2026: Renowned singer Kailash Kher, tabla maestro Bickram Ghosh and disciples of Girija Devi will headline the musical programme, while poet Vyomesh Shukla, writer Akshat Gupta and other leading figures in art and culture will explore the stories, ideas and traditions that give Banaras its character. NDTV Creators Manch, NDTV’s flagship cultural conclave, will present its Varanasi chapter as part of the CII Banaras Biennale. The two-day programme at Namo Ghat will explore how Banaras has shaped India’s cultural life and how the city’s traditions continue to find new expression. Through performances and conversations, the conclave will bring together musicians, poets, writers and artisans whose work offers different ways of understanding the city.
Highlights of opening day include a performance by renowned singer Kailash Kher with KAILASA. The day will begin with Itihas Live, featuring disciples of Padma Vibhushan Dr Girija Devi, and include a session with Padma Shri Rajeshwar Acharya on the city’s musical heritage. Kavyaraag, the music and poetry project founded by singer-songwriter and poet Chinmayi Tripathi and composer and multi-instrumentalist Joell Mukherjii, will bring Hindi and Urdu verse to the stage through contemporary musical arrangements. The Ganga Aarti will close the opening day at Namo Ghat, and tabla maestro Bickram Ghosh will open the second day with a session on rhythm and music.
The programme will also look at Banaras through its literature, craft and history. Poet Vyomesh Shukla, Prof. Badri Narayan Tiwari, gulabi meenakari artist Ramesh Kumar Vishwakarma and Anant Narain Singh, the titular Maharaja of Banaras, will take part in a discussion on the city’s cultural character. The panel brings together people who encounter that heritage through different kinds of work, from writing about the city to practising one of its distinctive crafts.
“What interests me about Banaras is the freedom its artists find within tradition. A musician can spend years learning a raga and still find a phrase that feels entirely their own. At NDTV Creators Manch, we want to hear from artists about the choices they make in that moment. Those choices tell us a great deal about how a culture changes and what it chooses to carry forward,” said Rahul Kanwal, CEO and Editor-in-Chief, NDTV.
Writer and screenwriter Akshat Gupta will explore Shiva’s place in the cultural imagination of Kashi. Humourist Sarvesh Asthana and poet and author Dr Tishya Shree will turn to the wit of everyday life in Banaras, bringing another register of the city’s culture into a programme that also considers its music and devotional traditions.
A panel on the future of art and culture will consider the role institutions play in sustaining artistic practice and bringing it to new audiences. Participants include Tarana Sawhney, Chairperson of the CII National Committee on Art & Culture, and Prof. Ajit Kumar Chaturvedi, Vice Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University.
“Through our association with NDTV Creators Manch, the CII Banaras Biennale celebrates the spirit of India in one of its most timeless cities. In Banaras, music, poetry and craft are part of everyday life, each generation carrying these traditions forward in its own way. By bringing these traditions and the voices behind them together, we celebrate how culture continues to craft the very idea of India,” said Madhav Singhania, Chairman of the Steering Committee, CII Banaras Biennale 2026.
The ghats and classical music of Banaras are familiar to audiences across India. At NDTV Creators Manch and the CII Banaras Biennale, that portrait will widen to include the Banaras its poets hear in everyday speech, its artisans see in a piece of meenakari, and its storytellers find in the many ways the city remembers its past.
