Arts Adda: How Marol Art Village in Andheri turned into a visual treat for everybody

Are you beside the mysterious blueeyed womanrdquoldquoNo But I see an old manrdquoldquoOkay keep walking till you spot the butterflies Irsquom thererdquoThese are the kind of bizarre directions yoursquoll find yourself exchanging in Marol They are all characters from street art works that dot a 15 kmradius area that constitutes the Marol Art Village Over the years it has hosted artists from Brazil to Borivli who have all left a mark hereA wall painted by artists in the Jabarpada chawlThe story begins in Eco Park Society in Marol where cofounder Omkar Dhareshwar resides With cofounder Zain Siddiqui mdash whom he met in the first week of college in Lonavla mdash the duo first cracked open a spraycan to add color and character to a typically urban locality While Siddiqui has since moved cities to Bhopal we catch up with Dhareshwar for a trip down memory laneExcerpts from the interviewGraffiti at Bharat Van a BMCrun park that has transformed into a hotspot for graffiti and hiphop jamsCan you take us back to the first graffiti that sparked the movementIn 2015 we brought together a group of eight artists including Mooz NME and Minzo to paint on the walls of my housing complexrsquos clubhouse Within 24 hours the space became unrecognisable with artworks splashed on each wall The residents loved it so much they gathered around it with pizza and beers that night to celebrate None of us could have imagined itThe Eco Park Society clubhouse in its recent avatarUnfortunately the space was repainted within months But it taught us the importance of having strength in numbers We painted many walls over the next two years including chawls and hidden lanes As for the name it has an unlikely link to South America In 2018 we met Chilean street artist Ricardo Santander during his tour of India When he returned in 2019 he asked us ldquoTake me to the art villagerdquo The name stuckDid the neighbourhood support you in this quest to carve a new identityInterestingly one of our earliest cheerleaders were residents of the Jabarpada chawl nearby who welcomed our art with open arms Imagine a group of female international artists feeling at home in these winding lanes An old lady even bought new curtains to match the colours of the graffiti on her wallStreet art created during the Ladies First initativeWe were soon noticed by the Military Road Residents Welfare Association MRRWA a citizensrsquo group in Marol who offered help We donrsquot need funds we said We had too many artists and few walls to paint The association became the bridge between us and building owners There might have been cases where you still drew residentsrsquo ireOf course In 2019 we started planning a new chapter called Ladies First in an attempt to give female street artists a platform It brought in artists from as far as Boston USA Shirin Shaikh a talented artist had planned to paint a buildingrsquos facade with a blackandwhite piece featuring a young girl and her hopes The crane was rolled in and the scaffolding was laid out At the eleventh hour the residents called it off deeming the piece lsquotoo depressingrsquo We went ahead with a mural of an Asian Flycatcher bird insteadOne of the first artworks painted at Eco Park Societyrsquos clubhouseLetrsquos address the elephant in the room Is it entirely legal to paint these large walls across the neighbourhoodThey are all perfectly legal We always acquire permissions from the housing society that owns the wall or facade The popular opinion that street art has to be subversive and practised elusively is not entirely true at least in Mumbai In the past wersquove had policemen stop by during our painting sessions and cheer us on Wersquore not sworn enemies My view which irks some graffiti artists that I work with is that street art can be legal meaningful and useful in the Indian contextThe neighbourhood hosts more than 200 graffiti worksWith the inevitable gentrification and redevelopment will these artworks be lost to timeNot quite In fact we have grown stronger A onekilometre stretch called the Wall of Fame is where all the buzz is right now Over the next year we plan to host guided walks there to introduce people to graffiti If young artists need our support wersquoll gladly take them under our wing As of 2026 nearly 150 artists have contributed towards the movementNME Mooz Krantinaari and Anpu VarkeyItrsquos true that the nature of our work is fluid mdash permissions support and the general attitude towards street art keep changing with time I have lost count of how many walls have been repainted over in the last two decades But somehow we have and will always find a wayAs seen in MarolThese globally acclaimed street artists have the neighborhood to thank for their early worksNumbers gameEver wondered how much money artists invest in the eyecatching street art you see across the city and its suburbsRs 34 LAverage cost of painting a largerthanlife mural on a building facadeRs 4000Average cost of painting a standard fence wall