Cross Cultural Amalgamation

Amalgamantion, I swear by Oxford's, is the best term to be used here to put much needed stress on this post.

Cross Cultural Amalgamation – The combination of two or more cultures.

Dandiya pretty synonymous with Gujrati Community has more and more patrons joining in the bandwagon every year. Navratri Utsavs, pretty famous all over India, are well known for the celebrations and the eagerness with which people from different walks of life come together and place themselves on a single platform,a platform of Universal Brotherhood.

A couple of decades ago, Navratri Utsavs seemed to be limited for Gujrati Folks only, but as time changes and it is a well known fact that Time Takes It Own Toll, Navratri Celebrations have off late started being more of an event for cross cultural celebrations.

Name any particular religion and you will find them there, dancing on the Dandiya beats, Religions holds no importance on the floor. Who made the religions, the man. God has always accepted everyone open heartedly and the same is pretty evident at these Navratri Utsavs. Ask any one who has been to Navratri Utsavs, they would swear by it that there were no issues pertaining to any sort, between them. Its all about being together.

This year, ushered in one of my colleagues from Sri Lanka, right on time for Dandiya. Excitement seemed to be on the peak of it. We all were elevated and were high about him, joining us for the event. Generally speaking, we've been to Dandiya with lots of people before including expats from UK, US and Australia. But this time, it was a lot different, it was someone from pretty close by. A person, who knows about India and has seen these celebrations in a lot of Bollywood Movies.

No pun intended, but he proved to be worth the mettle. It sort of takes a person a lot of guts to start off dancing admist huge crowd, which could give a well developed city a run for money.

Lemme introduce him, he is Lakpriya and we call him Lak. So, Lak was on the floor with us and it took barely a few minutes to get him into the groove and he was all by himself, dancing the night away. Dandiya continued for some time and then started the typical bollywood style of dancing clubbed with a few of Garba steps and Dandiya steps... the one we generally do at the end of the whole event, where we all break loose and go casual with the dance.

It was fun and frolic all the way.

All stressed out and drenched, we all sat down for a quick chat, which continued on for long and long.

Lak, tasted Kaalakhatta Ice Gola, pretty famous out here. Hope he liked it. Just lick it real slow, is all I can say about it.

More updates coming soon.

Challenging the Challengers

We all Dandiya Freaks challenged the Challengers at Namdhari Gaurav Navratri Utsav at last.

As the clock slowly ticked towards the 11.30 deadline, we all were in for a surprise as Challengers continued playing way beyong the deadline. We were all too excited about it but as you are very well aware that excitement is like a bubbles in a glass of Beer, even before you could have it, they disappear. Just 5 mins through and the music ceased...... oh! we were so disheartened.

Again another day wasted 'cos of the Terrorist Organizations. Special thanks to the terrorist organizations for playing around with the lives of people. Peaceful hyderabad turns into Timorous Hyderabad. Enough of brick batting the TO's, I shouldn't be wasting the time and blog space on these topcs, we've got the so called intelligence team to look after this.

So, now getting back to the Dandiya thing, we were all very disheartened but they took it up to the next level with some more music, that continued on for another 30 mins. What a respite, atleast we were able to touch the 12:00 timezone, else I thought this year, we won't be inching towards the 12:00 timezone.

Dancing to a new version of Nasik Dhol, with a lot of inclination towards Dandiya, that was a perfect blend of Dhol-o-Dandiya. Then followed by all the older tracks, concentrating much on the music part of it.

Overall, it was a great experience.

Namdhari Gaurav Navratri Utsav turns out to be a damp squid

Drumroll! The Dandiya season’s here and the city’s party lovers have already chalked out plans for the nine nights of feisty dancing.

Dainty cholis and kurtis teamed up with jeans, colourful lehengas and jhumkas were to stir the festive spirit. But what makes this whole thing a damp squid???

The over enthusiastic organizers closing down the celebraitons at 11.30. There were times when these events used to start at 10.30 and the whole arena used to heat up at 11.30 as this was the time, when most of the people walked in and used to get into the groove.

But 2007 brings in a lot of surprises, the deadline of 11.30. Early start of the event. Loads of security personnel around. Special thanks to the recent spate of bomb blasts and hoax calls, it was a good initiative by the organizers to having step-up the security but the unimaginable deadline of 11.30 seems to be the real problem.

There were times when we used to be around till 04.00 in the morning dancing the night away, enjoying each and every beat to the fullest. Following the rhythm of the dandiya beat used to be something done very very religiously. Those were the times, when it used to be all soiled Kurta-Pajama's, all drenched up souls dancing fervously to the tunes of Dandiya Beats. Those were the days :(

Now the times have changed with the super imposed deadline of 11.30, nothing seems to be working out now.

Who do you think would be able to go to that place by 7.30 and start the whole thing? Its been 3 days since this event started and i'ev just clocked about 1.20 Hrs on my dandiya celebrations watch. Danced just for 1.20 Hrs in these 3 Days... ain't it pathetic.

But, we all hope for the best and expect that the time extends atleast till 02.00 :D

The Dandia fever is here. And it is to stay for nine days.

What a respite!!!

The Dandia fever is here. And it is to stay for nine days.

After days of anticipation and searching through Hindi Milap & Hindi Vaarta religiously everyday for the past 10 days, it was a respite seeing the first Advt. of Dandiya of the season. Hope this isin’t the first and last of those Ad’s.

I still remember the days, when we used to see loads and loads of Ads everyday, about each and every Dandiya event organized in Twin Cities.

Times have changed now, thanks to the recent bomb blasts and the threats, due to which the organizers seem to have shied away from organizing the event this year.

Generally speaking, one could see a dozen Ad’s in news papers daily about various Dandiya events.

Namdhari Gaurav Navratri Utsav, a name synonymous with Navratri Celebrations in Hyderabad is back to their basics this year by organizing it at Mallareddy Gardens, their home ground. It used to be real fun at Mallareddy Gardens but from the past couple of years, they had shifted their base to HITEX Grounds, near Hitec City.

It was such a passé, never felt like going there. Whats the point in dancing on Carpeted floor, that too indoors. Authenticity seemed to be the lowest there.

The reverberating sound in the closed indoor hall of Hitex made me feel as if I am a part of one of those events organized by Gujrati Students Associations in USA, where in they generally do the Navratri Celebrations in Auditoriums and Halls. Enclosed Arena with Carpeted Floors isn’t that authentic for Dandiya.

Me too, as the organizers, have shied away from Namdhari Gaurav Navratri Utsav for the past 2 years and have been to various other places except Namdhari Gaurav Navratri Utsav full time.

But this time, it is a total different story altogether, I shall be back to the basics with Namdhari’s…. BACK TO MALLAREDDY ;)

Lemme share something with you, about 4 years ago, I still remember the day, when all of a sudden it started drizzling and everyone on the floor started running away, searching for shelters. We were a group of about 12 people, we continued dancing as we always follow one thing “Let Rain Come or Sun Shine, the Show Must Go On”.

Initially people thought we were crazy, but a few minutes later, we could see people rushing back onto the floor and most of them joined us and danced away in the rain. It was real fun, “The Challengers”, were all excited by the sight and were playing the best of the best tracks for us all, The Brave Soldiers of Navratri, who fought with rain and were continuing with what they loved the most.

This year, I do anticipate Rain and the Garbaraas drenched in rain.

Rain rain don’t go away,
Come again right away.
All the people,
Wanna play

So, lets embark on this new mission and shall keep you all posted about the latest happenings and etc.