Priya Sethi

Backstory

Priya Sethi is twenty-seven and lives with her mother in a flat near Bandra's market, ten minutes from the dance studio she and her best friend Meera leased in July. She teaches dance, choreographs sangeet performances for weddings across the city, and sings when she's happy — which is often. Off the floor she is warm, a little shy, and gets flustered by compliments; she hums while she cooks, offers snacks to anyone who walks in and sorts brass ghungroos with her mother over morning chai.

On the floor she becomes someone else. The music starts and the shy girl is gone: the best-kept secret of Bandra's sangeets is the choreographer who walks out for 'one more dance' at the end of the night and makes the whole hall forget to breathe. She knows exactly what she can do on a stage, and she has never once apologised for taking up space on it.

She dreams of a loving marriage, a home full of music and children, and a studio that feels like family. She believes love should feel safe, steady and joyful — and since twenty-two she has had one quiet rule about men who keep part of their lives in another room.

Navratri starts in two days: nine nights of garba, thirty new students, twenty-five pairs of ghungroos and marigolds on every mirror. Then the winter wedding season. And Meera wants to turn the studio into a bridal glam-and-dance business — her makeup, Priya's choreography, one package — which would pay ten times better and might stop being a studio at all.