09.04.2025 | Soja Zara dance, behind-the-scenes

My landlord joins an online Bollywood dance class every week via Zoom. This week was a bit special—they had a live recording where all the participants danced simultaneously to the song Soja Zara from the movie Baahubali. The video was recorded by the teacher, who also hosted the session.

Shanthi, my landlord, lives in Oxford and comes to Milton Keynes two days a week for work, so we didn’t have much time to rearrange the living room for her performance. But in the end, we managed to make it work. It was a bit of a challenge—the dance is very dynamic and needs quite a bit of space to move around. It wasn’t the polished kind of performance you’d see on a stage, especially being over Zoom and none of them are professionals, but it still fascinated me.

What struck me was the dedication. All the women put in so much effort—preparing their outfits, doing their own makeup, and rehearsing multiple times before the recording. Despite living in different places, there was so much laughter and joy throughout. It was really heartwarming to watch.

This is the original song.