Life is too short to be reasonable, just do Garba!
about the wisest use of the time we have
While nothing here is fictionalised, I’ve rearranged the order of some events, partly because my memory is imperfect and partly for dramatic tension. Harshitha and Kangna, the two people whose roles are most central to this story, had the post before it went up and complete liberty to edit or cut anything they wanted. That offer still stands, and it extends to everyone else: if I’ve portrayed you in a way you’re not comfortable with, or you’d just rather not be named, tell me and I’ll anonymise it, rewrite it or take the post down. Your privacy and comfort matter more than this post does.
Similarly, while I tried to choose photos without a single focal subject, if you’re visible in one and would rather not be, let me know. I’ll remove it immediately, no questions asked.
For most of my life, my policy on Garba (or any form of dance) was simple: why even embarrass myself by trying?
Which is a slightly strange policy for someone born and brought up in Gujarat. But it held up until 24th October, 2026, the first time I properly enjoyed Garba.
Garba is a folk dance, originating in Gujarat, that is closely associated with Navratri. Navratri (literally meaning nine nights) is a nine-day festival celebrating the divine feminine Shakti in all her forms.
The 10th day is celebrated as Dussehra (literally meaning victory on the tenth day or, in classic Sanskrit wordplay, victory over the ten-headed) which is a celebration of the victory of good over evil and commemorates the victory of Ram, the hero and avatar of god Vishnu in the epic Ramayana, over Raavan, the ten-headed king of Lanka who had abducted Ram’s wife, Sita.
My personal interpretation for the close relationship between Navratri and Dussehra, as supported by Krittivasi Ramayana, is that the Ram and his army had prayed to Shakti during the war against Raavan.
Raavan was blessed by both Brahma and Shiva, two of the Hindu holy trinity (Ram was the avatar of Vishnu, the remaining member of the trinity). Furthermore he had already defeated other gods including Indra, the king of Heaven and lord of lightening, thunder and rain. Perhaps it was reasoned that only the divine feminine could lead Ram to victory.1
As for the association with dance, well, dance and warfare have close associations in most cultures. They both have intricate and often confusing footwork and emphasize on flexibility, speed, grace and power.2
Garba as a dance is done in a circle (around an idol of Shakti or the specific form we are worshipping), in a meditative rhythm. There is footwork and clapping and spinning. The outfits are usually flowy. Girls wear outfits with long and decorative skirts, traditionally Chaniya Choli or Ghaghra; although ethnic tops with flowy jeans are also quite common. Guys wear ornate and free-flowing tunics, traditionally Kediyu or Kurtas.3
There is a specific style of music (Garba is a genre in itself) that is very danceable, groovy and is percussion heavy. Usually, phrases are repeated so that people can get their footwork and claps in time with the beat. There are usually some parts with heavy instrumentation and fewer vocals, a gross similarity would be like a drop in EDM. Like the purpose is similar.
The tempo usually oscillates, from slow to fast throughout the night. The slow songs are for people to learn the new step and get comfortable, and as it slowly speeds up, people usually leave the dance circle to take a break, enjoy the music, have some food as well as take photos.
Like it is hard to do the Navratri experience justice with just words. Hopefully the photos scattered throughout the post might help.
Anyways, with culture and mythology lesson over…
Given the festival literally involves people dancing through the night (like from 8pm to 4am) for like a week, all glammed up, often in open spaces away from their home; and the parents usually leave around at midnight, coupled (pun intended) with quite a few of the songs talking about love; it is no surprise Navratri is quite a common plot point in rom-coms4. It is a literal trope of a meet cute where a guy’s watch-strap gets stuck in a girl’s skirt while dancing and they trip and then have to leave the circle to untangle it. And hence, it is also associated with couples5 and love and dating.
But it is also a common plot line in friendship and coming-of-age films, like who doesn’t want to mess around with their friends at night, having street food, planning the next day’s outfit, taking photos, living life.
So why did I never enjoy it? Well, to begin with, I never had a lot of friends growing up. I fell in love with physics and then math at around 7 years of age, and nerds are famously not that well liked. Also, my school bus came at 7 am. So I wasn’t allowed to stay up.
Also, at some point, it was established that Arjun can’t dance to save his life and every dance teacher in school used to treat me like a second-class citizen and subject teachers used to keep telling me “it’s fine if you can’t dance. You are good at academics”. So I didn’t participate. After all, I can’t dance and academics are all that really matter. So why even embarrass myself by trying?
And then Covid happened.
And then I was 16, and I joined Badal and I was bullied into leaving everything fun aside. An excerpt from a draft I am working on:
I remember that there was this chemistry faculty named Kalra sir who one day asked us all “How many hours do you sleep every day?”
I slept 6. But I didn’t want a lecture on sleeping properly. So I lied. I said that I sleep 8 hours a day. Kalra sir was just short of slapping me. “What an utter waste of time! You spend one-third of the day sleeping! At your age, you should not sleep more than 4 hours.”
Kalra sir had a lot of ideas about how we should eat food quickly and do problem sets during travel (instead of talking with each other) and how we should use Pomodoro timers and to-do lists and Eisenhower matrices as after all we have limited time and we must spend it wisely (and obviously, the ‘wisest’ use of the time is to spend it grinding for an exam to get into a university).
So by the start of my undergrad, I had decided that life is too short to miss any reasonable opportunity to have fun. Like don’t skip an exam to go swimming but if you have nothing of immediate concern, why not ‘optimize’ for fun? And if nothing fun is happening, why not make it happen yourself?
Acting on that idea, Om Chaudhari, Mandar, Piyush and I organized CMI’s Ganesh Chaturthi, about five weeks into our first semester.
But remember, I don’t know how to do Garba. So even if I could organize a Garba night, it probably would be nothing but a bad approximation by a bunch of bumbling buffoons.
By my second year, I really felt homesick. Like all my friends were either back in Gujarat for a week-ish or their institutes had Garba night(s). And CMI had midsems right during Navratri.
I literally started dressing up for the exams.6
So in the third year, when Rajveer told me that there is a person in the new DS batch named Kangna who wants to organize Garba, I was overjoyed. But then my heart sank a bit, no offense intended, new people are well, new. And have a lot of (usually misplaced) trust in how much other people will help and take interest.
People often start with grand ideas: decoration, photo booths, workshops and worst of all, trust that other people will follow the dress code. But then Kangna didi had organized Garba before during her time at ISI Bangalore.
Hence, on 10th September, I made a group with Harshitha (someone I have collaborated co-conspired with a few times) and Kangna.
And within the first few discussions, this already seemed too ambitious. Reading the chats, even I had abandoned my veneer of realism and had started thinking of grand ideas.
Decorations with fairy lights, flowers and tulle; some two or three workshops; Kangna didi had already suggested a photo booth similar to the one they had in ISI and a style guide to encourage people to dress well, using their own wardrobe. And why not, let’s have it on the new campus (CMI has developed a new campus some 1 km away from the main campus for academic events) as it has more open space. Also, why not procure Gujrati snacks instead of the usual cold drinks and chips?7
We even made a poster for the whole thing!
But then, a few wrenches are thrown into our plans. To begin with, CMI told us that using the new campus was not a great idea as the IT park is yet to put up street lights to illuminate the path. Also, on a Saturday, the IT park is really solitary so it might not be very safe to be out of campus till late. If Garba goes on till 2am, how are people navigating back to hostel or PG?
We were also informed that we can’t play loud music post 11, unless we have SIPCOT IT Park’s permission (who would in turn demand the permission of the local police station). That’s too much hassle and bureaucracy…
Also, 10th (October) happens to be right in the middle of the placement drive. So DS2 would not be able to take part. But we can’t really have a date after the placements (15th) as a lot of people were going home for Navratri/Durga Pujo, including Kangna didi. Perhaps we have the Garba Night after Navratri? Well, why not? 24th seemed like the next best date (and it was also Kangna’s birthday!).
So the poster is modified. We decide to have it on 24th, on the main campus. The football ground would be a nice open space. And we announce this to everyone…
And then it rained. Heavily. So there goes the football field.
At some point we call our sound system guy, and he was booked. Everyone we could find off Google gave crazy high quotations, which would probably break our budget.
So by 20th, we (atleast I) were not entirely sure where to have the Garba Night, we hadn’t rented the sound system, the decorations were missing in action and the style guide was yet to move beyond the cover page. My brain was shouting, “See, this is what happens when you are too ambitious!”
But still, we had announced the workshops on 21st, 22nd and 23rd so let’s still have them. Maybe not enough people are interested and we can cancel the whole thing guilt-free?!
So we have the first workshop for Garba. And quite a few people turn up. So canceling is out of the question…
Not everyone was enjoying it, though. Harshitha sort of walked out in the middle of the workshop. Garba is knack-y: once you get the hang of the rhythm, it looks effortless, and our gracious and graceful instructors, Dhruv and Kangna, certainly made it look that way. At some point, Harshitha decided she was no good at it and would make a fool of herself if she stayed any longer. She had reached the same conclusion I had back in school: “why even embarrass myself by trying?”
So she decided to spend time figuring out the decor. With almost every alternate venue ruled out, we were left with the trusty old Audi Foyer. In CMI-speak, Audi Foyer refers to the high-ceilinged, well-ventilated, semi-open area outside the auditorium. This is the designated spot for almost every DJ party at CMI, so atleast it’s battle-tested in some sense.
But with the high ceilings, down goes the idea of any kind of fabric decor8. So what do we do now? Well, Harshitha figured that yellow and pink LEDs with colorful buntings would look nice and not be much of a hassle to set up. We manage to find LEDs which are within budget and eligible for Amazon’s one-day delivery (and then we pray to the transportation and logistics gods).
But there is still a massive sound system shaped hole… and it is already 23rd. Furthermore, Om informs me that quite a few people are planning not to attend as they don’t have ‘proper Garba wear’. WE FORGOT THE STYLE GUIDE!!!
So I decide to hell with the fancy pdf, the style guide will be a website. I had already written the advice for guys, so I set up9 a basic website and then ask Harshitha and Kangna to add the styling advice for girls. We also add a FAQ, just in case people have doubts. A few hours later, the website is deployed.
Om, going through the contacts, finds us a person willing to rent out the sound system who is not booked on the 24th and is charging a reasonable rate. Did we overpay a bit for the ‘privilege’ of making the decision at the last possible moment? Yes, but well, that is sort of upon us for not booking the sound system the moment we had the funds to do so.
Eventually, on the evening of 23rd, we get started with making the decorations. Vardhan and I mainly contribute using our hidden talent of cutting craft paper into squares (hey, you make >500 paper squares then speak) for the buntings. The LEDs also finally arrive. It all seems to be falling in place…
On the 24th morning, Harshitha wakes up with the realization that we are yet to think about the photobooth. So she decides to start working on it immediately. Srijani, Tanwishtha, Teertha, Shikha, Kangna (on her freaking birthday!), Rhyin, Manan, Tephi, Chinmayee, Vighnesh, Mandar etc all join in on finding, printing props; cutting and painting the booths and realizing this idea.
With less than 3 hours to the event, Om and I start pushing that we should probably start installing the lights. As there was some problem with a motor on campus, the electrician was busy. However, the electrician did give us the ladders.
Um, did I tell you that the Audi Foyer has a crazy high ceiling? While Lokesh and Om were up the ladders being the daredevils draping the LEDs (and Rishikesh, Shreya and I handed tape and held the ladders from below), before even the first pillar was done, the guards come over and tell us to climb the f*ck down. I mean, makes sense. If anyone fell down, they would probably get seriously hurt and CMI does not want to take responsibility for that. It was honestly stupid on all of our part and I am grateful that luckily nobody got hurt.
Furthermore, we were informed that we couldn’t use tape on the walls. The last time people used it for Halloween and there were marks. While I tried to explain that we were using masking tape that doesn’t leave residue, the guards told us that unless explicit permission was given, there shall be no tape.
So our decoration idea goes down the drain. What do we do? Well, Srijani comes up with the idea that we can tie yarn around the pillars and hang the LED from it (and tape the led with the yarn to keep shape). Makes sense. Om and I mess around a bit and figure out the exact implementation. Then taller people actually put it into practice, with a lot less jumping than us.
By 6pm, we are done with the lights. It’s 1 hour to the event! We still need to put up the buntings but they were in the CS lab which had just been fogged (chemical smoke to get rid of mosquitoes) and was locked as a result. A lot of the people have gone to their rooms or PGs to get ready.
As most people can’t really do Garba for more than 2-3 hours, it was planned that the last 1 hour of our allotted time (10 pm to 11 pm) will be classic Bollywood DJ. Given CMI has students from all over the nation and with varied tastes, there are a lot of song requests (and ppl do tend to remember them at the last moment). Om and I simply made a playlist of the most common ones (in some coherent order) and the songs we plan to use to announce the transition to the DJ night. That being Diljit Dosanjh’s G.O.A.T. After all, we have 1 hour so might as well start high energy in medias res.
Meanwhile Rishikesh and Dhruv helped organize the Garba playlist in order of tempo and energy and vibes.
And then we all went to get ready!
We all go to the Audi Foyer at 7:00 pm and the buntings are on the ground, in a pile. They were yet to be put up! So we start putting it up. I don’t even remember all the people who helped with this…
One of the buntings was so horribly knotted that we cut it in between hoping that would resolve it (divide and conquer something something). It didn’t. I literally remember Dhruv was all dressed up, untangling a knot…
Eventually, we did manage to solve all the instances, except for a single ball (so we hung it and called it an ‘aesthetic’ choice).
By this point it was 8:20, quite a few of the people were missing (including Kangna) while quite a few people were looking expectantly at the foyer. So Dhruv decides to start.
But wait? What about the photobooth?! Well, Harshitha, Chinmayee, Vighnesh, Tephi, Ritika, Rhyin and Mandar were working on it outside the CS lab. It is worth mentioning that everyone (except Harshitha) were all dressed up.
I try to convince them to leave it for a while and join the Garba but I basically got yelled at. So I try helping (and I still get yelled at).10
At some point (around 9 pm), Kangna finally shows up. She tries to convince Harshitha to join but (hopefully without the yelling) Harshitha cites not having good ‘festive clothes. And Kangna pulls out a literal skirt! Harshitha says that she’ll join after putting up the photo booths.
Some 30 or so minutes later, the photo booths are up. I had left the crafting bunch to join the circle by this point11, so I don’t know if Harshitha was there for a while but I am certain she didn’t join the Garba.
At around 10:10, we switch off the ceiling lights and turn on the flashing DJ lights and with that, we move into the DJ hour.
Towards the end, we played a bit of Garba again as the lights were turned on. And that was that.
Srijani and Tanwishtha had gotten a birthday cake for Kangna which was cut and then people did the quintessential group photos.
We later did manage to convince Harshitha to come back for some group photos. She had decided to leave right after setting up the photo booth as she didn’t want to do Garba (see above) and felt being in DJ would be somehow ‘wrong’ or that people will be annoyed at her for delaying things.
I can only speak for myself, but I don’t think Kangna, Dhruv, Om or I were annoyed by the delay. If anything, we were annoyed that you weren’t there. The photo booth was lovely, but it was never worth missing the whole night for. As for everyone else, well, people who didn’t pitch in don’t really get a say in how long the setup took. And in my experience, nobody walks into a party, sees a photo booth, and says “ugh, this should have been ready 30 minutes ago.” They say “omg, photo booth!” and then spend 40 minutes taking pictures in it.
Every ambitious idea we had either died or was mutated beyond recognition. The new campus, the football field, the fabric decor, the fancy style guide; even the ladders and tape. This is perhaps why, left to my own devices, I often steer clear of ambitious ideas.
And yet, every time something fell apart, someone showed up with a fix. People I didn’t even get to name (and I’m sorry, I am sure I have missed quite a few) stayed back to cut, paint, untangle and tape.
Kalra sir was right that time is limited. However, the ‘wisest’ use of time was not another problem set. For me, it was dancing in the Audi Foyer.
And yes, I did dance. Or atleast tried. I spent a good part of the night doing Garba, other than almost tripping over my shoelaces once, nothing very catastrophic happened.
All those years, the question was “why even embarrass myself by trying?” and the answer turned out to be that in a circle of people who are all busy dancing and having fun, there is no one to be embarrassed in front of.
Perhaps my only regret is that I wasn’t able to convince Harshitha to join in. She spent so much time trying to make sure everyone else had a good one and then didn’t have any fun herself…
If things go well, this might have been my last Navratri as an undergrad at CMI. I say “if” because the plan is to leave for a PhD. However, if nobody offers me12 one, I’ll happily stay for a fourth year and try to organize an even more over-ambitious Garba.
Either way, I’m glad that my first properly enjoyed Garba happened here, with these people, in this foyer, rather than as a “someday” that kept getting pushed back for something more ‘productive’ or ‘realistic’.
Left to my own devices, I would probably still steer clear of anything very ambitious. But I’m rarely left to my own devices, and I’m very grateful for that.
Anyways, next time (at CMI or wherever else I end up), I’ll remember to book the sound system early.1314
- This is further evidenced in Adbhuta Ramayana, where after Ram and Sita are finally reunited and return to Ayodhya, Sita remarks that the slaying of Raavan was not that big of a deal and that he has an elder brother Sahasra Raavan, who has a 1,000 heads. Ram decides to slay Sahasra Ravana but is quickly overpowered and rendered unconscious. This is when Sita gives up her human form and becomes Mahakali (a form of Shakti, embodiment of death and time) and almost instantaneously severs the 1000 heads. ↩︎
- In Hinduism, Nataraja, the god of grace and dance, is a form of Shiva, the god of might and destruction. Shakti is also often associated with both. ↩︎
- A distinguishing feature of outfits worn during Garba is mirror work. Plain kurtas are often worn as formals or semi-formals (including by yours truly) but kurtas with gem work, mirror work or intricate embroidery are often reserved for more festive affairs. ↩︎
- Note: Garba is indeed a group dance. From the FAQ:
Q: I don’t have a partner
A: Couples do turn up to Garba and do some cute stuff, but it’s not a couples dance. It’s a group dance. Sabh ko aana hai. (Trans: Everyone has to come!)
“Group dance wale hi memories banate hai. Couples toh sirf reels banate hai.” – Om Chaudhari
(Trans: “People who dance in groups are the ones who make memories. Couples just make reels.”) ↩︎ - And if you know me well enough, yes, I did pull out the matching algorithm yet again. Om set the questions this time around. 63 people filled the form, from which we formed 17 couples (I hope at least one of them becomes a thing 🤞). Om and I, as expected, were unmatched. ↩︎
- More than usual. Like I have a rule that I dress up for exams because if I look prepared, it is easier to convince myself that I indeed am. But out of homesickness, I started dressing up even more. ↩︎
- The food was one of my suggestions. It didn’t come to fruition. I wasn’t able to find any authentic or affordable Gujrati snacks in Chennai. If you are aware, please contact me ASAP, you’ll have my eternal gratitude. ↩︎
- Also, fabric decor is expensive! Buying fabric quickly adds up and what does one do with it once Garba is done? Can you rent fabric? From where? ↩︎
- aka “got an LLM to make”. I don’t intend to write HTML/JS from scratch ever again. ↩︎
- I don’t see how yelling at me helped… ↩︎
- I am not sure if that makes me a bad person/friend/organizer. But I really wanted to do Garba. ↩︎
- If you’re a professor with a PhD position in either algorithms or game theory (as well as allied topics), I promise my skills extend beyond cutting paper squares and my work is usually a bit less chaotic than demonstrated here. My CV can be found here. ↩︎
- Speaking of which, I am yet to book the sound system for pre-Diwali DJ. ↩︎
- This is a cross-post from my Substack, which has a back catalog of more than 60 posts from the last four years. I don’t cross-post everything, so if you enjoyed this one, consider heading there and subscribing. It’s free and lands straight in your inbox.
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