By Manasvi Shinde · June 2026
Some traditions do not survive because institutions preserve them. They survive because certain women, in certain moments, decide that they will. They carry the art in their bodies, in their discipline, in their refusal to let the world's indifference become their own. When I chose Lavani, I made exactly that decision — not simply to learn a dance form, but to walk towards something that carried a weight of misunderstanding, and to ask, plainly and without apology, why that weight existed at all. I am twenty-one years old. This is what Lavani taught me to understand about myself.
My name is Manasvi Shinde. What I am about to share is not simply a story about learning a dance form. It is a story about choosing to walk towards something that society had long tried to keep at arm's length — and discovering, in doing so, that the art form itself was waiting to be understood, not merely watched.
Lavani chose me as much as I chose it. Or perhaps more honestly: I chose it precisely because others hesitated to. Growing up in Pune, I heard the assumptions early and often. Lavani, people said, was not quite respectable. The women who performed it were spoken about in lowered voices and raised eyebrows. Historically, many Lavani artists faced profound social prejudice — their talent, their dedication, their remarkable contribution to Maharashtra's cultural heritage overlooked in favour of tired stereotype. That injustice troubled me deeply. It still does.
So when the moment came to choose, I chose Lavani. Not in spite of the stigma. Because of it.
What I found on the other side of that choice was extraordinary. Lavani is not a single thing — it is many things at once. It is music and poetry, storytelling and emotion, history and social commentary, all held together by the body's movement and the performer's stamina. But what strikes me most is its freedom. Unlike classical forms with their prescribed syllabi and fixed vocabularies, Lavani imposes no such boundaries. There is no designated syllabus, no fixed sequence of steps that must be mastered before you are permitted to express. The form opens its arms and says: bring what you have.
Your creativity is not a supplement to the dance — it is the dance. Your interpretation, your instinct, your willingness to be fully present in your own body — these are the syllabus.
There is no hiding behind inherited choreography. You bring yourself to it entirely, or you bring nothing at all.
I have been fortunate, and I know it. My family supported me — my mother most of all. Her encouragement gave me something that no academy can teach: the confidence to focus on the beauty of the art rather than the judgement that occasionally surrounds it. Not every young woman who feels drawn to Lavani has that gift. I carry her support with me onto every stage.
Through Lavani, I have learnt discipline and dedication in a way that no classroom has quite replicated — and I have watched those qualities quietly reshape the rest of my life. The focus it demands has sharpened how I approach my studies. The stamina it requires has taught me to stay with difficulty rather than retreat from it. The patience of rehearsal — returning to the same movement again and again until the body understands — has made me more deliberate in everything I do. Every rehearsal reminds me that I am not simply practising steps; I am participating in a lineage that stretches back through generations of women who kept this form alive under far more difficult circumstances than I face. Lavani did not just teach me to dance. It taught me how to commit.
There is a word I return to often when I think about Lavani: respect. Not the respectability that society gatekeeps and withholds, but the deeper kind — the respect that comes from truly understanding something. The women who danced before me deserved that understanding. Many of them never received it. I believe our generation has the responsibility to correct that.
When I dance, I do not feel as though I am performing. I feel as though I am carrying something forward — something that deserves pride, understanding and, yes, respect.
Lavani is a powerful, beautiful and irreplaceable part of Maharashtra's cultural identity. The ghungroo does not lie.
