Dandiya Nites in Blore

Navratri 2009!

I can’t remember the last time I had been to a Garba, perhaps it was in 2001 or 2000 in my colony Bombay. Its 2009 and I never imagined I was to attend a Garba and Dandiya again on the night of 26th in Bangalore of all places. And never ever could have imagined writing this sitting on a rooftop in Bangalore in a cool golden Bangalore evening with a cold tea cup and Sheryl Crow providing me company (acoustically). Things just fell into place for my Vacation, day -1. I needed a break. IT can get unforgiving at times, and best way to keep the steam up is to get away from it. More to come on that. Now Navratri.

As expected it was Sharayu who drove things to the end, with help from Swati this time. Gotta hand it to these two iron ladies to bully a bunch into the long forgotten art of having fun. The plan since last 2 weeks was to attend the Navrati celebrations at the Samyukta Mandal in Jayanagar which finally came through on Friday. The best plans are made last moment, and so I got a call at 5 ordering me to come for the do tonight. There were to be 4 confirmed people me, Sharayu , Swati and Kavitha. Sandy and Kamal were teetering on a go – no – go decision. What boosted our Enthu was Murli, a senior guy with equal enthu as us teenagers (mental age). I wish I could give him an award, but I guess my Dandiya sticks would have sufficed. I managed to get my tired self to this do knowing very well that I had a packed day tomorrow as Mom and Bro were to come to Blore. But since it’s a once in a decade event, I can miss my sleep for a night.

We reached at a very proper 9 pm to the venue which is just off the parallel road to KFC jayanagar. We could see the energy to be involved in the revelry, outside the venue with the colorful traditional Garba costumes people were coming in. Our group was one of the fairly well dressed I felt what with the ladies in great Punjabi suits and us guys in Kurtas. Swanky cars displayed the economic achievement that the Gujrati community has become synonymous with. The venue was a large school indoor audi which we entered for a ticket fee of 200 per person, pretty decent given that the big mandals charge as much as 500. The scene inside the audi struck us like a car. Packed with people already dancing in the circle, the whole place had a festive energy like none other. A professional navratri band was playing and almost every body was up on their feet and dancing and singing, the best way to worship the Goddess.

Immediately Sharayu, Swati, Kavitha and Me joined the circle absolutely clueless on how to dance the Garba. Never the less improvisation and a few mini disasters later we all managed to pick up the steps which are pretty easy once you get the hang of it. Sandy and Murli jumped in after a few rotations. The star of the show was Kamal! The shy fellow was replaced by a guy who truly danced, as the saying goes, as no one is seeing you dance. He was thoroughly into the groove and enjoying himself as were the rest of us. The tempo kept varying and we learnt some variations in steps to the Garba, basically a 4 step combo with claps.

We took a well deserved snacks break which was a cool surprise in itself. A great spread of Bombay theme dishes like Vada Pav, Pav Bhaj, Dhabeli (this stuff is awesome in Bombay) which was kinda OK and Gujarati dishes like Dhokla, Khaman chivda etc. We had some of everything and ended it with multiple Golas. Refreshed, we were looking forward to the Dandiya round.

Dandiya Raas is played with sticks (Dandiya in Gujarati) in two counter rotating circles where two people, or solo sometimes, are involved at a time. It requires some practice or Gujarati genes to kick it off the first time, but once to many I ended almost hurting people around me. People who knew how to play did so brilliantly. I was dazzled at times and stopped to see them but each person had a step on every beat and so had to keep on playing to avoid disappointing the partner who switches after every 4 steps. I played with Kids, teens and the seniors alike. Especially the seniors played splendidly with their ease and grace. Also present were the flashy young guys and girls with fancy costumes, steps, makeup and funky Dandiyas (one guy had a cool pair of rotating silver colored dandiyas ).

We ended the experience at 3 am, but because of the amount of the festive fun we had; I am sure no one slept for atleast another hour. Now I need to find out where to get those silver colored rotating dandiyas for next year…