Sanedo or Snehdo?

It is called Sanedo. It started some time in 1960's. He died young. When he came up with it, people criticized him a lot, but later it became part of the Garba culture. It was started by a single individual from Rajkot. "Sanedo" comes from "Snehdo". Sneh means love. Most of the original couplets were about love. They are two lines and then the singer bursts into the words "sanedo Sanedo Lal Sanedo Sanedo". This is not exactly Raas or Garba, often done at the end of a Graba program during Navratri. It was made popular by the Mumbai crowd and by Rupal Doshi here in USA.
During the "couplet phase, you just sit and relax.Drum rhythm stops.When the word Sanedo comes, you jump and dance has hard as you can. It is more or less a free for all. There is rhythm but you are not required to dance a certain way, but most people will do the same step.
Look up on You Tube and you will find some interesting "sanedo" pieces. Since the couplets are sung without the drum, there is lot of freedom in what is said and how it is said. Nothing obscene. It often involves names of a wedding party (custom Sanedo), if the Sanedo is done during pre-wedding Sangeet or Garba as most of you will do when you get married. We recently had the pleasure of planning Garba and Bhangra for a Malayali couple. They even served North Indian food. No Bharat Natyam or Malayali folk dance there! I guess that is the trend. Then again if you see a Guju wedding party doing dance you will See lots of Bhangra and some Garba. Young people to Bhangra on the street as the procession is moving, then the whole thing stops and Garba circle starts. Fire crackers go off. Traffic is disrupted. I guess all is fair in Love, so who cares for laws and rules!

BOB Chicago here we come

It finally happened. Boston University (BU) Raas team won Maryland Masti. My understanding is that they will be in BOB. This is a "traditional" based team. Why do I know this? The captain was trained by my wife. She happens to be our lovely child (Beta tu jiti gai, Wah!). That means both of our children will have competed in BOB.
I plan to attend the competition for the first time. I might attend GWA in two weeks as one other family member is dancing there and I will be in San Diego, so might as well drive to Irvine. This is my favorite competition because it is well organized and I get to see the California and Non California teams. I have attended for last three times. Normally California teams win there because of the nature of judging (don't get mad I don't mean the judges are biased or anything like that). That is just history.
I am looking forward to this season.May the best team win it all.