New Trend In USA: Bollywood Inspired Exercise
By Kamla Bhatt • Jul 18th, 2009Category: Books, Movies, Music, Televison, Americas, Bollywood, Diaspora, India, Living In America, People, YouTube Videos
There is a new trend in the US: Bollywood inspired exercise routines. While some may consider this new and attribute it to last year’s Oscar winning movie Slumdog Millioniare … the truth is that this trend has been around for a few years. I first heard about it almost 10 years ago when Sarina Jain introduced her Masla Bhangra exercise routine in US gyms.
For over 10 years now Sarina has been tirelessly promoting this new fusion form of exercise, where she added her own desi masala steps to spice up the old aerobics routine.In the past few years there has been a rapid growth of Bollywood inspired exercise routines that were often available as Bollywood dance classes in the local community centers around the country. Many of these classes were not certified by any fitness organizations in the US, but that did not stop the growth of this new exercise trend.
The new dance exercise became the new “in” thing in many desi communities around the country. Then with last year’s success of “Slumdog Millionaire,” the new exercise trend got a shot in the arm.While I have watched the growth of this phenomena from the sidelines, I had not written about the popularity of this desi exercise dance form. But, when I did I discovered a whole new world of why, what, when and where this new Naachercise, Bollycercise all began and that in turn became the subject of an article: Masala Grove in Open magazine. I had to distill all the research and squeeze into a 1,000 word article. You will get a pretty good idea of why Bollywood inspired exercise is the “new in” thing in the USA and has now crossed the borders (or should I say the oceans) into Europe and Asia?