Coldplay, Ed Sheeran, Kochi Biennale and Kala Ghoda: What are 25 things to do in 2025

Solo Shows

Aravani Art Project

In Mumbai, Atul Dodiya will show his new body of work at Chemould Prescott Road Gallery, while Gallery Maskara will present a solo of artist T Venkanna. The trans-women and cis-women-led artists collective Aravani Art Project will celebrate its nine years with a solo at Gallery XXL.

KMB, Serendipity & More

The sixth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, curated by artist Nikhil Chopra and his team at HH Art Spaces, will be inaugurated on December 12. The Serendipity Arts Festival will be held in the same month in Goa. Art Mumbai will also return in November 2025.

Dhrupad Fest

Celebrated at Devi Talab Mandir, near the shrine of Baba Hariballabh in Jalandhar, the prestigious Hariballabh Sangeet Sammelan will turn 150 this year. Held in December, this three-day festival has been famous for its attendees, particularly those from far-off villages in Punjab, who were mostly well-versed with the intricacies of classical music.

The Multiplier Effect

Ed Sheeran

The Perfect and Shape of You singer-songwriter is set to return this year with ‘The Mathematics Tour’. Named after his chart-topping albums (Plus, Multiply, Divide, Equals and Subtract), the tour will see Sheeran performing across six major cities in India. The line-up includes two shows in Bengaluru and one each in Delhi NCR, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai and Shillong.

Art for Art’s Sake

The Mumbai Gallery Weekend from January 9 to 12 will be followed by the opening of the India Art Fair in Delhi in February. In its 16th edition, the highlights at the fair include never-before-seen works of artists Huma Bhabha, Oscar Murillo, Anish Kapoor and Ai Weiwei, and M Pravat’s 15-ft-tall glass box that promises to be a unique experience.

Word Power

In No Need to Take It to Heart: Essays on Freedom of Speech (Westland) Perumal Murugan will discuss the role of fiction in a society that seems to have no use for literature, through personal essays and literary criticisms.

Kala Ghoda Fest

Asia’s largest multidisciplinary art festival, Kala Ghoda Arts Festival is celebrating its Silver Jubilee Edition from January 25 to February 2, in Mumbai. They have planned over 300 programmes across literature, visual arts, dance, music, theatre and food. Don’t miss a poetry crawl through the by-lanes of Kala Ghoda.

Finding Roy

Mother Mary Comes to Me (Penguin) by Arundhati Roy is the Booker winner’s first memoir and tells the story of her relationship with her mother, women’s rights activist Mary Roy, who died in 2022.

Design Weeks

It’s raining design — be it the India Design ID in February, in Delhi; Design Mumbai in November; BLR Design Week this month or the Ahmedabad Design Week next month.

Once Two Many

L2: Empuraan (pictured), the second installment of a planned trilogy following Lucifer (2019), is likely to be released in March. Raid 2’s release date is May 1 while Housefull 5 will hit theatres on June 6 and Baaghi 4 on September 5, headlined by Tiger Shroff. This year, Ajay Devgn will be taking two of his franchise forward with De De Pyaar De 2 and Son of Sardaar 2. Did anyone say ‘sequel fatigue’?

Books on the City

With cities bearing the brunt of urbanisation and wrath of nature itself, many architects are turning to different imaginations of our cities. Architect-urban designer Bimal Patel is working on a book titled Imagining India’s Cities, while Delhi-based Nishant Lall is geared to release Learning from Riverfront, on his well-documented Patna Riverfront project. Veteran architect Raj Rewal is documenting traditional building techniques in a book.

Food Trends

Premiumisation of existing beverages is the big story of 2025. This will be the year of teas — not just as infusions but as a unique flavouring in desserts and sauces. And while Northeastern food is expected to be the breakthrough, micro cafes or restaurants are the next big thing. As for mainstreaming of Indian ingredients, watch out for the sweet and sour tamarind. This is expected to feature prominently in global cuisine.

Art Mumbai

Two years ago, Dinesh Vazirani and his partners launched Art Mumbai. It returns in November this year with its third edition. Scheduled from November 13 to16 at Mahalaxmi Racecourse, it promises to bring together more galleries from around the globe. Will there be another jaw-dropping parade by fashion designer Tarun Tahiliani? Only time will tell.

Art Anniversaries

The Art Alive Gallery in Delhi will hold a solo of artist Jayasri Burman

The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art will celebrate its 15 years in February with a retrospective of Gulammohammed Sheikh. Marking its 35th anniversary is Delhi’s Gallery Espace with a solo of artist Amit Ambalal. And while the Art Alive Gallery in Delhi will hold a solo of artist Jayasri Burman (art pictured), at the Partition Museum, Seema Kohli presents ‘Khula Aasman’, delving into personal and collective histories.

Fish, Cat and Fog

Mumbai-based Yuki Ellias has written a stream-of-consciousness play about the reunion of a son and mother through the fog of her dementia. If I’m Old, It’s Because a Fish Ate my Cat is a gentle, comic, poetic script that goes into magic surrealism and fantasy as with most of Ellias’s works. Rehearsals will begin in February.

All We Have Imagined

Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light continues to collect the highest international recognition. The film is tipped to be nominated in several Oscar categories.

Fashion Shorts

Sustainability is finally becoming a part of your personal style, mixing, matching and re-wearing what you already have. Blend oddities like singer Usha Uthup, who has repurposed old sari borders on her sneakers. Athleisure gets credibility, so think tank top with trousers and jackets. The flowy silhouette continues. Colour blocking will protest against digital clutter.

AI Museum

The world’s first Museum of AI Arts, Dataland, will open in late 2025 in Los Angeles. After autonomous AI artist Botto fetched $351,600 at Sotheby’s in October 2024 and a portrait of celebrated World War II codebreaker Alan Turing by Ai-Da Robot sold for $1 million, there is speculation about how 2025 will see artists collaborate with AI in new ways.

New Releases

With the sequels of Stree and Pushpa creating buzz at the box office in 2024 and them registering impressive collections (Stree 2 grossed Rs 850 crore worldwide and Pushpa 2 is expected to cross Rs 1,800 crore), 2025 is going to witness a string of sequels as well as addition to popular franchises.

India’s Grammy Hope

Chandrika Tandon

India will be in the spotlight this year with quite a few nominations. Business honcho Indra Nooyi’s older sister Chandrika Tandon (pictured), the first Indian-American woman partner at McKinsey, won a Grammy nomination for her album Triveni in the Best New Age, Ambient or Chant Album category. She  will compete with composer and multiple-Grammy winner Ricky Kej, whose album Break of Dawn won a nomination. The category also features Indian-origin sitar player and composer Anoushka Shankar, who is nominated for Chapter II: How Dark It Is Before Dawn. London-based new-age chant artiste Radhika Vekaria, who debuted with her album Warriors of Light, is in the competition, too. The album features her versions of Hanuman Chalisa, Tulsidas’s Raghupati raghav raja ram and the Maha Mritunjaya jaap. Shankar is nominated for a second Grammy in the Best Global Music Performance category. She features in the song, A Rock Somewhere, a track by British musician Jacob Collier. Bengaluru-based flautist, singer and composer Varijashree Venugopal features in the song, allowing her to clinch her first nomination.

Star kid’s debut

Aryan Khan

The much-awaited debut of Aryan Khan (pictured) will be a significant addition to the 2025’s entertainment calendar. Netflix and Red Chillies Entertainment have come together for a special untitled Bollywood series created and directed by Aryan, son of Shah Rukh and Gauri Khan. The series blends a high-stakes narrative with self-aware humour, featuring blockbuster cameos and larger-than-life characters for a tongue-in-cheek take on Indian cinema.

Amitav’s 25

Amitav Ghosh

Wild Fiction: Essays (HarperCollins) by Amitav Ghosh is a return to “the subjects that have obsessed him over the last 25 years”, namely climate change, literature, language and the way we inhabit, ruin and regenerate the places we walk on, on Earth. He tackles topics as diverse as the mangrove forests of Bengal, the commodification of clove and the role imperialism plays in it all.

The Phantom of the Opera in India

Come March, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera will be staged at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre’s The Grand Theatre, Mumbai. It tells the story of a masked figure who lurks beneath the Paris Opera House. The spectacular production features Webber’s scores including The Music of the Night, All I Ask of You and Masquerade. It will be held from March 5 to March 30.