Rain plays spoilsport in Baroda garba
Heavy rains that lashed Baroda on Thursday night has affected organisers of large garbas in the city but has cheered small and street garba organisers.

Five major garba organisers are forced to postpone their garbas till October 1 due to water logging in the grounds.

The garba organisers were apprehensive when sporadic showers were continuing last week. The heavy downpour on Thursday evening has left all major grounds flooded. Yet the enthusiasm of garba lovers has not dimmed and they have turned towards small scale and street garbas.

Five major garbas including the United Way at Atladara area, United Aarkie at Kirti Mandir, Yugshakti garba at Akota, Beta at Ajit nagar and Surmai at Vaccine institute near Mujmohda area have postponed the event on Friday. The organisers informed that due to heavy rain the grounds have become marshy and is difficult to clear in two days.

When contacted Met officials in Ahmedabad ruled out heavy rainfalls in next 24 hours; however, they said small thunderclouds may appear. Director of Met, Ahmedabad R.K. Kankane attributed the continuous rainfall to small upper air circulation over Surat, Baroda and some parts of Maharashtra.

Mr Yogesh Akolkar of United Aarkie told The Asian Age, "We have been dumping clay for about a week and due to rain the grounds have turned muddy. It is not possible to hold garba in such condition and therefore we have unanimously decided to postpone our plans."

The Baroda commissioner of police Sudhir Sinha said that the police has accepted the applications of the garba organisers who are going to postpone. However, there would not be any alteration in the schedules for playing loudspeakers, added Mr Sinha.

On the other hand, residents of small colonies and societies have initiated to hold street garbas. Mr Hemant Patel of Arunachal society in Subhanpura area also said that despite the disappointment due to rain, they would now hold garba within the society itself. "We usually prefer to go to Maa Aarkie at Subhanpura area but now we would simply put music systems and play garba in our society. The residents have also greeted this plan as it requires no major equipment to be set up."

Mr Hemant Shah who organises garba with local residents at Wadi Rangmahal street also believes that street garba would be more successful this year. "Navaratri is social festival and should be celebrated with your neighbours. Every year youth from our area go to big garbas but from today they have also started taking interest in street garba. We hope that culture of street garba would be revived if rain continues in the following years during Navaratri."

Similarly, small organisers have also relaxed, as the rains have not affected their planned events. Chinnam Gandhi, the organiser of Kalyanbaug garba at Manjalpur area said, "Our grounds are clear and garba can be held without any problems. We largely depend upon the local crowd that is so enthusiastic that in the rain also they are prepared to play garba."

However, the motive behind postponing garba by big organisers is the huge amounts of advertisement collected from the promoters, informed the sources. The sources said that the big organisers could not afford to cancel garba as they cannot refund the promoters after making huge investments and therefore the entire event has been postponed by four days.

(With inputs from Ahmedabad bureau)

Republished from The Asian Age