Dandiya che!

School girl-ish excitement was the flavour of the night, along with some Pav Bhaji, eggless cake and cuisine. The women were dressed up in mirror-work ghagras complete with tons of Lambada-style bangles, temporary tattoos, face makeup and heavy headgear. The men were mostly in kurta pyjamas, but some wore the traditional Gujrati costumers. The sticks were many-coloured and blingy.

That's how the first Dandiya night of my life began.

We dressed up in our best and went to Palace Grounds last night, reaching at 9:00 p.m-ish. Surprisingly, we were early. Dandiya sticks were on sale - 20 bucks a pair - and since we didn't carry any of our own, we excitedly went and bought us some...bamboo sticks of various colours cut to size and lined with pink colour on the edges???

Dandiya nights are apparently places where the eyes meet and the hearts connect - either in the circle of dance or via heavy saree-clad 'Ben's and 'Bai's. So when we arrived, the Gujju boy of our gang was given a once-over by a Black Saree Ben snickering something into her companion's ear. The Gujju girls - one who hadn't been to a Dandiya night in 10 years and another who felt like it had been that long since she had done it - were also weighted and rated by their dance moves, smiles and... more. Our South Indian friend decided he was better off amidst the stalls packed with Gujrati flavours than wielding sticks to give a friendly smack to his rotating partners.

I was pretty freaked out by the intricacy of the dance movements - the garbha and what-not - till i got the basics, after which i was set for the night. Two rounds of basic, then another three with a bit more flourish, and i was bathed in sweat. The movement might be slow and the beats well-paced but you can bet your a** that it exercises your body like hell. And because the circle is so enormous, we dandiya-d with the same people over and over. I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of the night, we'd started addressing everybody by their family-given nicknames! We wound up at 2:30 in the morning after a last ten minutes of frenzied dancing during which the drummer fancied himself to be a band member of Rammstein.

Exiting the place and fully excited at having inaugurated my Dandiya experiences, i turned to my friends and said, "So, shall we do this on Wednesday too?" to which my friends replied with withering looks. Like me, i guess they'd never dreamed of dancing to Dandiya versions of Beedi Jalai Le (Omkara), Tadap Tadap Ke (Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam), Bin Tere Sanam (Umm, don't remember movie), and other very new-age disco numbers - one night of it was as much as they could handle.

Oh well, until next year then.