The Gujjus have taken over the internet once again, and this time the reason is most definitely predictable. It is garba and Navratri reels. But this time, Northies have joined in, too.
“No one humbles you like people at garba,” reads the text on a reel, as the camera pans to a circle of dancers spinning in perfect rhythm. This is the closest we will get to a pictorial depiction of how the Earth moves around the Sun.
“Bhai, they kicked me out,” the caption reads. No one can outdo the doers, and the Gujaratis aren’t here to lose.
“How do they sync? Practice??” the comments wonder. The perfect synchronisation of professional garba dancers is yet to be studied.
The Beyblades, the dandiya and the Gujju boyfriend
The Viral Spiral is every garba reel at once: a man spinning like a Beyblade right on the beat, the nth fit check featuring beautiful oxidised jewellery I would go to war for, a woman wielding a dandiya like a weapon, and one Punjabi Delhiite, clearly lost at the edge of the circle but still having fun.
In one of the most popular reels of this garba season, creator Unnati Patwa flaunts her Gujarati boyfriend.
“How my Gujju bf plays garba,” the text reads, as a man dances in professional-grade footwork. “Vs me” cuts to Patwa dancing lightly, her dandiya spinning in her hand like a Sudarshan Chakra.
“Is there anything that this man can’t do?” the comments ask, clearly in awe.
In another reel, captioned “bye bye atheism, hello Navratri”, a man practises his best garba steps in his pyjamas in front of the TV.
“Bye bye garba, hello TikTok dance,” the comments hit back.
Atheism, it turns out, lasts exactly until the dhol starts. Apparently, so does garba.
The Northies arrive, and bhangra takes over
The Punjabis have obviously joined in, too, although without any significant garba skills. They can definitely match the energy, though.
In a reel captioned “Punjabis at garba night for the first 10 minutes”, people dance properly to the theme song popularised by Daya Ben, complete with dandiyas and garba circles. Then come the “rest 3 hours”, when the Punjabi inside everyone takes over, and the floor turns into a bhangra session set to “Mundian To Bach Ke Rahi”.
In a similar reel, a group performs garba in a circle for the “first 10 minutes”. For the “last 10 minutes”, the garba circle remains, but the steps are unmistakably bhangra-coded.
“Harmeet, Manmeet Patel brothers,” the comments quip.
Do not get me wrong, I love a good Punjabi party. But we really cannot do anything other than the five steps of bhangra, two of which are just screwing in a light bulb. The enthusiasm, though, is always there.
Also Read: Ganpati reels are making LGBT puns, modak-shaming north Indians. Sohail Khan is the meme
Dhankor Baa or modern Hansa Ben?
Over in makeup land, diva and makeup artist Sujal Thakkar did a Navratri look inspired by Dhankor Baa, the matriarch of Ram-Leela.
I do not see it, though. It reads far more demure than Dhankor, the kind of face that would ask permission before starting a family feud. The comments went straight for the accent in the video and settled on “Modern Hansa Ben”.
Supriya Pathak played both Dhankor Baa and Hansa Ben, so at least one woman in India is getting royalties out of this.
As someone raised in a Punjabi household on a steady stream of Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah with every meal, watching Daya Ben do garba made me feel I deserve at least one dandiya night of my own.
And since it is the season, I nominate Falguni Pathak as the queer icon of Navratri. Fight me in the comments. I do not mind.
The other side of the garba circle
Not every garba story this season is a reel, though.
Amid all the fun reels are some troubling ones: Muslim people being asked to leave garba grounds. Hindutva lads want to gatekeep the fun.
In one video doing the rounds on X, Bajrang Dal members are seen stirring up Hindu-Muslim tensions from the stage at a garba event. They are then pushed down towards the crowd, where they are heckled.
The comments were largely supportive of the crowd’s response, with one user writing, “You did absolutely right, this is the only way to handle these people, they can be tamed just like this.”
In another video from Bhopal, a woman dressed in a burqa is seen performing garba while promoting the ‘love jihad’ conspiracy theory, displaying hateful posters against Muslims.
“Garba partner hoke bhi kya fayda, isko entry hi nahi milegi” — what is the point of having a garba partner if they will not be allowed entry? — creator Aditya captioned a video.
Humour is obviously one of our best lines of defence. But the joke points to something far less funny: the policing of who gets to participate in a public celebration.
It’s a strange thing to do to a dance built on a circle that keeps widening. You can now be asked for paperwork before you are allowed to spin for the goddess. And then they insist the festival is a cultural thing.
Anywho, the Beyblade will keep spinning, the Sudarshan Chakra girlfriend will keep winning, and I’ll be at the edge of the circle doing my same five steps, thrilled just to be let in.
The one rule of garba has always been to keep up and keep spinning. It would be nice if the guards checking the dancers’ religion felt the same way.
(Edited by Maryam Hassan)