IndiskFika: The Indian dance group taking Sweden by storm

"He's very passionate about camera work, cinematography. I'm very passionate about dance," Govindan says of the collaboration. 

Their initial idea was to take advantage of their location in to shoot dance routines out in Swedish nature, in the same way that Bollywood movies sometimes shoot routines against European scenes such as Swiss mountainsides or Italian plazas. 

"Indians are very famous for movies, like Bollywood, so we wanted to do a cover video of a particular song from a movie which was going to be released. Since we are living in Sweden, we have plenty of opportunities to cover good locations and nature, so that was an idea," he explains.

The name 'IndiskFika', ("Indian fika", a fika being a Swedish term for a coffee break in the middle of the day) came from Govindan and Veeramanivanna's wish to combine Swedish and Indian cultures. 

IndiskFika performing in the Talang talent show. Photo: TV4

"We started with five to seven people in 2019, that was the first thing we did, and we did a shoot and edited everything, then we realised that if we wanted to release it, we should have a name," Govindan says.

"So we started thinking 'what name should we pick for this team?'. We came up with the idea IndiskFika. Everyone knows about fika in Swedish, right?" 

Their videos, some of which have over a million views, became popular both among Indians at home and among members of the Indian community in Sweden, whose interest helped the group grow further.

More and more Indians living in Stockholm started asking to join, and soon they were doing live performances:  one at the Chalmers University in Gothenburg, and another at the Diwali celebrations held by the Västerås Indian Association. 

When the pandemic hit, IndiskFika didn't let it stop them. They started planning a digital one-year anniversary for the group, and began looking for other groups to collaborate with. 

That was how Govindan began collaborating with Varma, who had been performing with a different dance team. "I had been performing at various events like Namaste Stockholm with a different dance team based in Stockholm since 2017, but during pandemic, everything had come to a halt since it was a tough time for all of us," she explains.

When new people joined IndiskFika, it gave the group a new impetus. "That's when the boost started," Govindan remembers. "We became stronger and stronger. So, so many things happened."

IndiskFika first came to the attention of ordinary Swedes with an article in Ingenjören, the members' magazine for engineering union Sveriges Ingenjörer. Many of the group's members are IT engineers or students at KTH, the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. "They did an article about us, about the engineers continuing their passion for dance, so that reached a more Swedish audience," Govindan says. 

This led to more in-person performances, which in turn caught the eye of the producers responsible for Talang at Sweden's broadcaster TV4.

"The Talang people said 'we read about you and we've gone through all your YouTube videos, why don't you come and participate in Talang 2022?'. The rest of the story you know. We participated in Talang, and we got a golden buzzer from David Batra in the prelims, so we went direct to the finals."

The group were among the top eight teams in the finals on March 18th, but for Indians in Sweden, reaching the final was a win in itself. They were invited for a fika with India's ambassador to Sweden, where they were treated to both traditional Indian and Swedish treats.

Many of the group's members work full-time alongside dancing, which can be difficult at times.

"It's not easy to be so dedicated by spending extra effort after office hours, with hectic weekend schedules for rehearsals especially when everyone in the team has a full-time job," Varma says. "There’s a lot of things that take place in the background from logistics to costumes, hall bookings, co-ordinating everyone’s availability, social media activities and so on."

Like many foreigners, though, Govindan and Varma have taken their time adapting to life in Sweden. 

"All I knew about Sweden was that it was one of the cold and dark countries," Varma says. "Eventually you start liking it, and you know, everything is worth it for the summers that you get here. The fika tradition, the amazing work/life balance, the nature, that's the best part that we have here."

"I didn't have much of an idea about Sweden," Govindan agrees. "The temperature, where I come from, throughout the year is between 25 to 40 degrees. In terms of temperature, nature, the people, everything is different."

"India is very rich in culture, right?" Varma says when asked about the differences between Swedish and Indian culture. "We have a lot of colours and a lot of different flavours and you know, that's the kind of performance we gave. That was the plan: to give a very energetic, powerful, and colourful performance."