Click to play videoAhmedabad: The strict checking at dandiya venues this year may be a dampener, but one Garba organiser has found a way around it. He has created a drive-in dandiya where visitors who come to watch the Garba don't have to go through the strict checking that occur en-route to a Garba ground.
For Rs 500 per car, people can drive straight into the venue, avoid the crowds, and enjoy the celebrations from their vehicle.
Organiser of SOI Dandiya, Himanshu Shah says, "Necessity is the mother of invention. With all the security arrangements now, we thought this is a good, convenient way for the upper class people to just enjoy the celebrations and not bother about going though security issues for it."
At the famous Karnavati Club, celebrations are on in full swing. The safety of these Garba enthusiasts is being monitored by specially trained experts of the four-legged kind - sniffer dogs.
The club has spent the last month hiring and training 10 Doberman dogs at its own cost. They say their dogs are now as competent as the state's official sniffer dogs and it's measures like these that are keeping the nine-day-long party on in full flow.
If people were apprehensive on the first day of Navratri, then the glittering crowd has allayed all fears, It's their Goddess Ambe Maa, people say, who is keeping their smiles and their luscious swirls intact.
As die-hard Garba dancer Suryansh Shah says, it's still the nine most fabulous days of the year and as long as the Goddess is watching over them, no harm will befall them.
Here's hoping for a safe and fun festival season ahead.
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