It all seems so long ago now. The year was 2010. NH7 Weekender debuted in Pune. India got its first full-fledged non-Bollywood, multi-stage music festival. The world sat up and took notice, saying, "Hmmm, what do we have here?" And over the next few years, music fans in the country finally woke up to the fact that they wouldn't have to rely anymore on washed-out rock stars playing at, say, Palace Grounds in Bengaluru to get a taste of international music. They realised that they could now look forward to a cutting-edge contemporary act like Mutemath as well.

How far things have come since then. Look around and you'll find a diverse range of music festivals, big and small, dotted across the country. They can be in a place as far off as Arunachal Pradesh where Ziro kicked off yesterday. Or, they could be in a tourist hotspot like Goa, the location for Sunburn. But here's what. The idea of attending such an event in India still involves a fair bit of travelling (sometimes even to the middle of a desert, as is the case with Magnetic Fields in Rajasthan's Alsisar Palace). So, you don't just have to buy tickets for entry. You also have to book transport and sort out hotel accommodation. It requires a degree of commitment, in other words.