Come September 26, nights in Hyderabad will reverberate to pulsating garba and dandiya raas beats and spectacular Navaratri events. The festivities usher in grand celebrations after two pandemic-hit years.
The renewed energy is palpable this year. “I cannot stop dancing when the Dholida song is played,” says Saloni Jain who has been practising a hook step for a month now. It has been a busy September for Saloni; she has been overseeing preparations along with her mother, Kavita Jain, for the fifth season of Navkar Navratri Utsav to be held at Classic Gardens, Secunderabad even as she is planning her studio launch during Deepavali.
Nine-day festivities
Preparations for Navratri began much earlier at her house with business as usual during the day and dance sessions in the afternoons. For this annual family event,she has teamed her best anarkali with a skirt recycled from her mother’s violet brocade sari. Saloni has already planned nine different looks in her attire over the nine celebratory nights.
Minal Vakharia, president of Telangana Gujarati Samaj, along with Prakash Jadhav, had organised Navratri Utsav at Imperial Gardens, Secunderabad for five years. The venue was shifted to the SNC Convention indoor auditorium in Attapur during the past three years. This year, Minal hopes a crowd of 2,500 dressed in their best will enjoy the fun, fiesta and music by garba singer Kairavi Buch.
“Garba is the best thing about Navratri,” exclaims Minal. He organised dandiya shows for around 15 years at the Gujarati Seva Mandal in Secunderabad with 1,500 members. “The enthusiasm was the same even when we had only three dandiya event organisers in the 80s. Now the trend has changed and folk music has been replaced by orchestra and DJ music. People from different communities are also participating and , the scale has only become bigger,” he points out.
“Imagine the euphoria when around 5,000 people dance at a time on a huge garba stage,” enthuses Vinod Kumar Pentakota, a technology partner of the event Rangtaali In the last two years, the event saw 500 participants but this time the scale is bigger with the organisers booking the 45,000 square feet Shamshabad Classic Convention.
The Beat Makers band from Mumbai belts out peppy dance numbers. On the trend changing from folk music to rhythmic beats, Vinod says, “Youngsters love to dance energetically to DJ beats. The fun moments with friends become a good memory.”
Fun time dancing
Businessman Prem Kumar Joshi was eight when he played garba to the song ‘Pandkhida tu door na jaana. He looks forward to meeting new people and making friends. Navratri also brings out the dancer in him as he can dance for hours; he loves swinging to traditional songs with his wife, Shanta, as his dancing partner. Prem says, “Earlier, garba dancers looked for a dancing partner from the family but now they like to match their outfits and steps with friends.”
Dance studios across the city are also busy during this time of the year. Garba and dandiya enthusiasts queue up to train in folk dances performed in indoor and outdoor grounds and housing complexes. At a two-hour free workshop organised at Classic Gardens, around 200 people learnt the basic steps including the do-taali garba (where dancers clap and circle) by Javeed Sheik. “ Do taali step has six counts,” he explains. “Put your right leg forward then left leg forward and go round and round while clapping hands for four counts.” Javeed has spent a decade taking garba classes that usually begin two months prior to the festival. “Youngsters love to dance to traditional tracks such as Kheleiya, Geeta Rabari and Taal 2.0 are popular,” he adds.
