Grooving to a different beat

A statistical programmer in the morning, an aspiring comedian by evening, a belly dance instructor on weekends, and a plus-size model, too. There’s even some amateur tennis in between all this. This is an average week in Anjana Bapat’s life, which she quietly breezes through, as though polishing off the many layers of an indulgent cassata. The Sicilian dessert is also what she uses to describe the colour-blocked, three-tier dress she’s wearing when we meet at her Vile Parle residence: “Yeh bina istri ka cassata maine mere paise se khareeda,” she chuckles, taking a dig at the bleak financial prospects of plus-size modelling.

Bapat is one of the newest stand-up comics on the block, having started out in the pandemic, by actively attending open mics since 2021. But the stage is not new to her. Bapat’s videos of belly dancing have been viral on the Internet. Growing up as that kid who knew all the steps to ’90s Bollywood numbers, dance had always been her first love. “After doing four years of salsa, I got bored of being led on the dance floor by a guy. I wanted to dance by myself. I joined a belly dancing class and it’s just been non-stop from there. It connects you to your body like nothing else,” shares Bapat, adding that it helps bridge the alienation that we tend to create with our bodies.