I am writing this article as a way of introducing the very popular folk dance forms of Gujarat, Garba and Dandiya, that come into prominence during this period of Navratri – Dussehra every year. Folk dance forms are a way of getting together communities and families to celebrate the oneness. Garba and Dandiya are performed as an offering for the goddess Durga, in her many forms. So, traditionally all the songs used to dance Garba and Dandiya upon are hymns in praise of the goddess.

On demand from the CL Family, HR thought of having a garba evening in the office to bring together the entire office for a short time of fun and frolic, infusing energies and building camaraderie.

As I have been an ardent dancer and been part of the folk dance movement, Lok Utsav in Delhi for almost 15 years, I thought of putting together a short article to help everyone get the basics of Garba in place…

I am sharing herewith a few steps of Garba as an initiation from the Lok Utsav repertoire…these are the alphabets of the dance. When you put together these alphabets in various combinations, umpteen number of words and sentences of the dance will emerge.

For starters these 8 steps are good enough to create infinite number of words and sentences of Garba. Everyone who masters these eight steps can create many a choreographies….. Let me see how many will get created by the passionate ones…

Here are a couple of sentences conjured by the gurus, putting a few of the alphabets…

Here is an interview of mine by NDTV, asking how corporate honchos are into dance and what ways does this energize…

To help you to visualize your choreographies, I am sharing a few of the videos shot by me over the years….from the annuls of Lok Utsav

This video that I am sharing, I shot a couple of days ago, that of 2023