Neighbourhood Winter Festival Begins at Bandra Fort with Merlin & The All Stars: A Christmas Night That Belonged to the City

Mumbai rarely synchronises. Noise overlaps noise. Agendas collide. Even celebration usually arrives fragmented. Which is why the evening of December 18 at Bandra Fort felt almost unreal in its coherence. The opening night of the Neighbourhood Winter Festival did not attempt to dominate the city. It invited it to gather, to listen, and to participate. And at the centre of this gathering stood Merlin Dsouza. Not as a star demanding attention.But as a conductor shaping emotion. It was a fantastic privilege to open the show.

Merlin Dsouza: When Musical Authority Feels Like Care

Merlin’s brilliance lies beyond technique. It lies in temperament. In a performance ecosystem obsessed with presence, Merlin understands absence. She knows when to step forward and when to disappear into the piano, allowing others to rise. From the moment she took her place at the keys, the evening found its balance point. Every transition carried intention. Every pause had purpose. Every artist on stage felt held. Her classical grounding showed not through excess but through discipline. This was not a Christmas playlist stitched together. It was a score. And Merlin was shaping its arc in real time. Her Christmas concerts have, over the years, become a kind of seasonal ritual in Mumbai. Familiar without being stale. Sacred without being exclusive. Festive without becoming loud for the sake of it. At Bandra Fort, that signature matured into something larger. A civic moment.

The All Stars: A Fully Realised Ensemble

What elevated the night was the strength and clarity of the ensemble Merlin assembled and trusted.

The Band

The backbone of the evening came from a rock-solid band that never overplayed and never receded.

• Shannon Pereira on lead guitars, fluid and expressive

• Alastair Quadros on drums, precise and grounded

• Ron Ashton Pereira on violin, lyrical and emotionally piercing

• Alanis Rodrigues on bass, anchoring the groove

• Dan Fernandes on synths, adding modern texture without clutter

The instrumental Carol of the Bells, led by Ron on violin with Merlin on piano, became one of the most powerful moments of the night. No vocals. No theatrics. Just discipline, restraint, and feeling.

The First Half: Setting the Emotional Compass

The show opened with The Naughty Elves Medley, blending Mary Did You Know and Deck the Halls, immediately warming the amphitheatre. My own opening performance of It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas helped the audience settle into the night, followed by Shahriyar Atai, who brought humour and levity through his Candy Man parody.

Siddharth Meghani delivered a deeply felt Blue Christmas, slowing the evening down and introducing its first moment of introspection. Then came Yoko Rai, performing with her ventriloquist partner Tutu, offering a Christmas medley layered with commentary on the environment and the city itself. It was intelligent, local, and refreshingly unexpected.

Kimberly Van’drine lifted the tempo with Underneath the Tree, followed by Khurshed Mogrelia, who leaned fully into festive joy with All I Want for Christmas. Giselle Pinto kept the energy buoyant with Run Run Rudolph before returning with Khurshed for a choreographed Baby It’s Cold Outside, one of the most visually engaging segments of the evening.

The first half closed with Dimple Cyrus (Dizzy D), whose Silent Night and Go Tell It on the Mountain grounded the audience before the interval.

The Second Half: Theatre, Play, and Precision

Post interval, the show expanded its vocabulary. Yoko Rai returned, this time with Dolly, performing Oh Holy Night in a theatrical format that blended humour with reverence.

Sharma-G, who also co-hosted the evening, followed with a Stand By Me parody that felt intimate rather than performative. One of the most memorable moments of the night came with Santa Baby, performed by Kimberly Van’drine, Giselle Pinto, and Dimple Cyrus, with Sharma-G seated centre stage as Santa. Playful, self-aware, and perfectly tuned to a mixed-age audience. Siddharth Meghani returned with Santa Bring My Baby Back to Me, followed by Dimple’s Santa Claus Is Coming, sustaining the festive rhythm. Kimberly then delivered Baby Please Come Home, backed by elves, bringing a musical-theatre flourish to the open-air stage. The band took centre stage with an instrumental God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, before Nicolas Johansson injected a modern funk edge with his Christmas number.

The ensemble reunited for the theme song It’s Christmas, preparing the ground for the finale.

When the Audience Took Over

The final act dissolved the performer–audience divide. Silent Night, O Come All Ye Faithful, Hark the Herald, Feliz Navidad, and We Wish You a Merry Christmas were sung collectively. No prompting. No coaxing. Inside the Bandra Fort Amphitheatre, voices rose together and travelled outward with the sea air. The crowd was no longer watching a show. It was completed. That kind of trust is earned. Merlin earned it.

Leadership That Chose to Stay

What gave the evening additional weight was not just the music on stage, but the kind of leadership present in the audience. Ashish Shelar, Cabinet Minister and MLA, personally graced the opening night of the Neighbourhood Winter Festival at Bandra Fort. His presence was not symbolic or fleeting. He stayed through performances, observed the flow of the evening, and experienced the concert in the same way as the audience seated on the stone steps. That distinction matters. Cultural initiatives succeed when policymakers engage with culture as lived experience rather than as a scheduled appearance. By remaining present through the performances, Ashish Shelar reinforced the idea that public arts are not side programming, but central to how cities build cohesion, shared memory, and identity.

The evening also saw the presence of Dr Cherly Misquitta, President of Bandra Gymkhana, whose attendance underscored the alignment between cultural programming and community institutions in Bandra. Her presence reflected long-standing support for inclusive public spaces where families, artists, and residents coexist without hierarchy. Together, their attendance signalled something larger. The opening night of the festival was not framed as an exclusive cultural event, but as a civic one. Leadership, artists, organisers, and citizens occupied the same physical and emotional space, sharing the same music, the same weather, and the same collective pause. In a city where access is often tiered and presence is often performative, that choice to stay, listen, and participate quietly became one of the most meaningful statements of the night.

Why Merlin’s Night Will Linger

Many concerts impress. Very few recalibrate a city. This one did because Merlin Dsouza understands that music is not about command. It is about care. About creating enough safety for emotion to surface and community to respond. At Bandra Fort, Merlin did not simply lead a Christmas concert. She held a collective pause for Mumbai. That is cultural leadership.And it was the perfect way to begin the Neighbourhood Winter Festival.