Why some Indians are looking to ‘rent’ a partner for garba and dandiya events this Navratri

The money matters because Karachevtsev knows what comes after Navratri: nothing. For several weeks following the festival, she has no confirmed work. Like the five flatmates with whom she shares a 1,400-square-foot flat in Mumbai’s Goregaon, she will go back to looking for ways to fill the gaps. “A wedding, a corporate party, a modelling assignment, perhaps a film or advertisement if the phone rings,” she shrugs.

For now, she will dress up in a ghaghra choli and “don chandelier-size jhumkas”, turn up at the Dandiya venues, dance, mingle, pose for photographs and spend the evening being somebody’s paid companion.

“It’s a job!” she says nonchalantly, puffing hard on her vape.

In many parts of India, the annual nine-day autumnal Navratri festival, being celebrated between October 11 and 19 this year, is accompanied by garba and dandiya events — nine evenings of hectic dancing, socialising and living up to intense competition from other attendees. Especially in the social media era, when what you wear, how you dance and who walks in on your arms has to pass not just scrutiny from friends and family, but that of the virtual parivaar; the reels must be put out and must be liked. Not an easy time to be single in the city.

Mumbai resident Bhavin Barot knows this only too well. Since his breakup last December, Barot has repeatedly found himself under the family lens, his single status treated less a personal circumstance than a problem everyone feels entitled to discuss, he says. “Ever since I broke up in December last year, the one thing everyone, from my aunts to my cousins, inevitably keeps asking is whether I have met someone. I can sense them judging me, or even pitying me. I live alone in Mumbai, but every phone call or visit home eventually boils down to this,” he says.

What rankles is not just the constant questioning, but the assumption that he is somehow an object of sympathy as someone approaching 30 and still single. This Navratri, Barot is hoping to turn the tables, if only for a few nights. With the outfits for both of them, accessories and the car for the Mumbai-Surat commute already booked, he is looking forward to walking into the dandiya venue with Mika, his "Navratri date on rent" on his arm. “Mika is not very comfortable with English and barely speaks any Hindi, but we got along well when we went out on our first 'date' earlier,” he says. "I've only said I'm bringing someone special with me and want to savour the moment when their jaws drop."

Hollywood reached there before us. The 2020 romantic comedy Holidate has Emma Roberts and Luke Bracey being each other’s plus-ones on New Year's, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day… you get the drift. Then the Indian gig economy adopted the idea and put a price tag on it. And suddenly, Navratri, traditionally a festival of connecting with your people, has acquired a new gig: finding someone to be your person for the evening.

Across Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Surat, Indore, Delhi, Bengaluru and even smaller towns like Raichur and Ranchi, advertisements offering ‘Rent a Garba Partner’ and ‘Dandiya Companions’ have been circulating on social media. Offering hourly companions structured into ‘Silver’, ‘Gold’, and ‘Platinum’ tiers (with prices ranging from Rs 1,500 to upwards of Rs 20,000 for a four-to-five-hour engagement), the services promise tailored companionship. The top-tier packages even advertise international dancers, specifically highlighting East European or Ukrainian partners.

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The listings quickly sparked outrage. Mumbai BJP MLA Sanjay Upadhyay publicly urged the police to investigate the platforms for fraud, safety, and potential exploitation. “This is playing with the sentiments of people during a festival like Navratri which has a religious mooring,” he told The Federal, hoping authorities will “examine whether there is a trafficking angle”,

Deputy commissioner of police (DCP) Vishal Thakur, who heads the cybercrime directorate within Mumbai Police, confirms his team is looking into the matter: “It might be too early to divulge how we’re tracking those responsible for such ads. Suffice to say we’re working closely with police departments across multiple states in the country.”

Yet, look beyond the controversy, and a far more revealing cultural shift comes into focus. Depending on who you speak to, the language belongs to a dating app or a corporate rate card. Packages. Hours. Upgrades. Premium companions. What sounds like a social media stunt is structured with the cold efficiency of a service menu.

Rajni Dholakia, a Pune-based coordinator who helps connect Dandiya enthusiasts with potential rented partners across Maharashtra and Gujarat, explains the hierarchy seamlessly: “Our Silver package, priced between Rs 1,500 and Rs 3,000 (for one event), is purely about dance mechanics where we send an adept local dancer whose job is just to keep step, guide you through complex 12-step or 16-step routines, and save you from the awkwardness of stumbling alone at the edge of the circle, but if a client wants social camouflage, they upgrade to the Gold tier for Rs 5,000 to Rs10,000 where the partner acts as a polished social companion who navigates VIP queues, blends into friend groups, takes cinematic reels, and offers charm during intermissions, whereas the Platinum package running anywhere from Rs 12,000 to over Rs 20,000 is all about status and optics, bringing in eye-catching trophy companions or international performers for high-end, pass-only commercial venues where social proof takes priority over actual dance steps.”

The rise of the transactional garba partner is the collision point between extreme urban solitude, the modern gig economy, and a festival culture that has shifted from spontaneous neighbourhood play to high-stakes social performance. For the thousands of young professionals and students who migrate to mega-cities, nine nights of mandatory jubilation can magnify personal isolation.

“When everyone around you is coordinated in family groups or posting couple reels, sitting alone in a one-bedroom flat in Andheri hits twice as hard,” says Rohan Jha (28), a financial analyst who moved to Mumbai from Jehanaba (Bihar) two years ago. “Navratri isn’t built for solo attendees. If you enter a garba circle alone, you feel hyper-visible.” Jha has already booked partners for the last three Navratri nights. “Her face is on several hoardings in the city and even on the Metro train ads,” he admits candidly. “I want all the crowd, including my colleagues and an ex to notice.”

For many young singles like him, paying for a partner functions as insurance against modern FOMO (fear of missing out), bridging the gap between isolation and participation where dating apps feel exhausting and organic community spaces are disappearing.

“A generation ago, Navratri lived in housing society courtyards and residential gullies," recalls sociocultural historian Mukund Kule. “Music came from local sound systems or live traditional singers, and the dance floor was a forgiving space for amateurs, elderly participants, and children alike. Spontaneity was the point.” He contrasts that past with today’s hyper-curated environment: “Commercialisation has reshaped the landscape. Mega-venues with multi-crore budgets, celebrity line-ups, and pass prices running into thousands of rupees have turned Navratri into a high-production spectacle.”

The rent-a-partner trend is yet another part of that shift. In the ‘90s and even early 2000s, when dating in India was still far more surreptitious than it is today, events like an annual dandiya or garba would be an opportunity to interact with a potential love interest or meet someone new. The anticipation was aptly captured in many a Bollywood song and even ‘Dandiya queen’ Falguni Pathak’s music videos (think a young Riya Sen sighing at the memory of her brief interaction with a crush in Yaad piya ki aane lagi…). Now, the focus has shifted from who you meet at the event to who you arrive with.

Informal networks offering festival companions have existed since around 2018, according to Kule, but expanded after the Covid pandemic when the entertainment industry took longer to regain its pace. “In the past two years, it has become larger and more organised,” he adds.

When the festival becomes a stage, arriving without a well-matched partner can feel like arriving without a costume. The companion becomes an extension of the outfit, serving as curated armour to meet the visual standard expected by the venue and the camera lens.

On the other side of the transaction are the partners themselves: college students, aspiring and out-of-work actors and models, freelance dancers, flight attendants, and international performers attempting to navigate Mumbai’s relentless cost of living.

Women like Karachevtsev form part of the less visible economy behind the phenomenon, one in which women who came to India looking for work in films, advertisements, modelling, and cheerleading find that their looks, their ‘foreignness,’ and their ability to hold a room’s attention can themselves be monetised.

A four-to-five-hour dandiya or garba appearance can fetch even a newcomer foreign performer between Rs 12,000 and Rs 15,000, say those part of the circuit. For a woman with advertisements or films on her portfolio, the figure can rise to Rs 18,000 or Rs 20,000, depending on bargaining skills. (This rate is significantly more than for an Indian partner — Rs 2500-5000, depending on the person, venue etc, say those in the know.) Stylists, make-up artists, and costumes can push the client’s total bill by another Rs10,000 to Rs 12,000.

Karachevtsev knows the difference between a good season and a bad one. “Bollywood’s appetite for foreign faces has slowed. Advertising assignments are less dependable and cheerleading work is harder to come by,” she says. “Women who once expected to spend a season moving between film sets and events — sporting or otherwise — can now find themselves waiting for the phone to ring.”

Work has also become quite fragmented. One week she may be expected to mingle with a bride’s friends at a mehndi-sangeet. The next, she could be at a corporate event, sitting at the registration desk before carrying a tray of citations to the stage.

Then comes Navratri. This year she has four bookings, including the family event in Hyderabad, where, unsure of the guest list, she is taking a Russian bouncer as her plus one. “I have nothing for several weeks after that,” she says. “I am, like all my flatmates, looking for opportunities to moonlight.”

For Karachevtsev, Navratri is not a social-media curiosity. It is a bridge across a dry spell.

More than a decade ago, when Ukrainian women were arriving in Mumbai chasing Bollywood, the promise was different. There were films, advertisements, fashion shows, music videos, and cheerleading opportunities in the Indian Premier League (IPL), say those who have made the journey. The money was rarely spectacular, but the possibility of being noticed was.

Tatyana Klimova, then 22, was one of those hopefuls. Three years after arriving from Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, she is still amused by the attention her appearance attracts. At a salon in a Goregaon mall near her flat, a little girl staring at her through the glass before hiding behind her mother’s burqa leaves Tatyana laughing. “Being fixed with a stare wherever I go in India still makes me laugh. Feels like a chimpanzee in a zoo,” she says.

Her Ukrainian chaperone, Yulia Kurylenko, is not amused with the attention. “Why can’t you go anywhere without drawing attention?" she scolds. Kurylenko arrived in India in 2000. Between the odd assignments, she waited tables, managed a bar and eventually entered the business of supplying foreign women for films and advertisements, building networks in Kyiv and Odesa.

“The women want visibility in films and advertisements to command higher remuneration. They want fashion shows. Some want Bollywood. Others simply want to earn enough money to make the journey worthwhile,” Kurylenko says, reminding how the condition back home in Ukraine has not been good for a long time.

But the reality of India is considerably less glamorous. A girl could spend six to eight hours on a shoot and make only Rs 3,000 to Rs 4,000 for appearing in the out-of-focus background. Weddings and cheerleading pay more, but even those opportunities have faltered. “Work has been drying off since last year,” Kurylenko says. “This year it’s come to a stage when the girls are cutting corners to stay on in Mumbai because going back is not an option. So this Navratri gig is good news for both them and me. After all, if they earn, I earn.”

Women’s Studies expert Tejaswini Sevekari argues that outrage around these arrangements misses the underlying nuance. “The keywords here are agency and informed consent. As long as the women have both, patriarchy shouldn’t go poking its nose where it doesn’t belong.” She cautions against viewing the market through a single lens. “What is the customer actually purchasing? Perhaps a dance partner. Perhaps company for an evening. Perhaps a little confidence for someone who doesn’t want to arrive alone. Perhaps a photograph that looks better on Instagram. Perhaps the novelty of dancing with somebody they would otherwise never have met. And perhaps, in some cases, something that both sides understand very very differently.”

The listings may not represent a single unified industry; some are genuine commercial offers, while others are promotional stunts, scams, or attempts to tap into festival dating culture. But the underlying demand is unmistakable. “The desire for company. The desire to be seen. The desire to arrive somewhere with somebody. And the willingness to pay for it,” Sevekari says. “For the women on the other side of the transaction, though, the calculation is less philosophical. It is rent. It is a flight home. It is another few weeks in Mumbai. It is surviving until the next casting call.”

Delhi model Apurva Rao, who has already bagged four paid appearances in Jaipur and Indore, echoes this view. “For a freelancer living off her looks, Navratri is valuable precisely because it compresses demand into nine nights. As garba grounds fill up, people who might otherwise spend an evening at home want to be part of the spectacle. That concentration turns attention into income.”

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That may be the most revealing aspect of the new garba economy. The traditional circle was built around belonging; the modern one runs on a rate card. At one end, a patron pays a few thousand rupees for a stranger to walk beside them into a dandiya circle. At the other, an international performer earns a premium by serving as the foreign face at someone else’s celebration.

In between lies a changing urban landscape where loneliness, novelty, entertainment, and employment converge.

For women like Karachevtsev, the old dream of being discovered in Mumbai has acquired a pragmatic qualification: it is no longer enough to be discovered; you have to stay booked. For nine nights, at least, Navratri offers that lifeline. Eventually, the dhols will stop, the lights will dim, and the rented companions will head home to await the next call.