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Author: Raheel Dhattiwala and Prathima Nandakumar/TNN
Publication: The Times of India
Date: October 12, 2005
It may be her first visit to India, but Tetyana Nikolayeva from Sweden has already got her garba moves right. "I attended a couple of garba classes on the campus," said the exchange student on the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, campus, before giving a demonstration to fellow students, Aurore Zanardi from France, dressed in a churidar-kurta, and Caroline Ingeborn from Sweden. "One step in front, clap then twirl.....," said Nikolayeva.
For its 20-odd exchange students, IIM-A, for the first time, organised garba classes a few days before Navratri. In Vadodara too, a large group of former exchange students of Aisec (French acronym for International Association of Students in Management and Sciences) will arrive this week. "These are student Japan, Mexico, Czech Republic and Finland," said an organiser.
Indeed, Navratri is as much an attraction for foreign visitors as it's for Gujaratis. While some are tourists, others are students, and a few are here on invitation of the state tourism department. Like Enrico Cioli, a travel agent from Milan, Italy, who's been travelling across Gujarat since he came to Ahmedabad for the state government's Vibrant Gujarat Mahotsav.
Cioli has checked out Navratri in Rajkot, Vadodara, Surat and Ahmedabad, "even dancing in groups in my T-shirt and jeans". "I noticed that unlike garbas in Vadodara and Rajkot, revellers in Ahmedabad aren't too particular about their dress. I feel the other cities are more traditional," he said.
For Carin Alves, a 25-year-old sociologist from Portugal, Navratri in Vadodara is about tradition and making friends. "Playing garba was a great experience, right from shopping for the traditional costume and accessories to making new friends at the garba venues," he said.
Even for Ingeborn, a trained dancer "in loo-odd Swedish folk dances", garba is new "But I think I can pick it up," she said, as she watched Nikolayeva do a short move. Interestingly, the reason why Nikolayeva is not dressed in the traditional chaniya-choli is coyness. "I feel uncomfortable baring my midriff," is her rather unexpected reply Ask Ingeborn if she ever came across Indian dances on television in Sweden and she says after a pause: "Sure, Bollywood dances by the old man and his son." We don't need guesses on that, do we?
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