MUMBAI: Garba venues have lit up with daily rehearsals for the festival of Sharadiya Navratra October 11-20. Borivli is the hub of the dandiya circuit with Goregaon-Malad and Mulund-Ghatkopar in hot pursuit.
Singer Falguni Pathak will perform in Jio BKC, sisters Preeti-Pinky at Inorbit Malad, Parthiv Gohil at NESCO Goregaon, and folk singer Geeta Rabari and Kinjal Dave in separate sections of Kora Kendra Borivli.
Kora Kendra promises lakhs of sq ft of playing area, wooden floors and canopies to ward off rain.
Veteran organiser Ganesh Naidu is looking forward to hosting Kinjal Dave while the 'Kutch ni Koyal' Geeta Rabari has loyal followers too. BJP MLA Mohit Kotecha's event at Kalidas ground Mulund attracts Gujaratis in large numbers.
Parthiv Gohil said, "Our Rangilo Re troupe has been performing at NESCO since 10 years. We have loyal audiences who come at 7.00pm and stay till the end. They prepare special costumes and props. We cannot experiment too much with garba songs but our musicians and technicians always explore new sounds and techniques."
Old-time organiser Sankalp returns after a gap of 14 years.
It was the one to launch large scale dandiya festivity in Mumbai in 1994 by introducing Falguni Pathak. Before that garba was played mostly in building compounds.
Founder Devendra Joshi said, "We introduced vocal music to live garba in a time when Babla, Adesh Srivastava and Viju Shah performed instrumental music. We brought Falguni Pathak and also introduced garba competitions."
Sankalp halted in 2014. It is now making a comeback with Preeti-Pinky at Inorbit Malad.
New singers like Eesha Goyal of Malad are exploring garba too. "I have released a new single called 'Garbo Ramiyo Re' today. I have a YouTube channel where I plan to upload it as I seek a platform for live performance."
