Mumbai: As Garba festivities are in full swing, many parents or their relatives have deployed detectives to closely monitor the behavior of young men and women attending the dandiya events. There is a growing demand for private detectives to keep an eye on children or spouses going out at night to play Garba.
With the increasing use of social media, young boys and girls are coming into contact with each other easily. Recently, private detectives have been hired to gather information about boys or girls introduced through social media or to find out with whom a parent's child is going to play dandiya. Similarly, if a husband or wife has suspicions about each other and one of them is going out to play Garba at night with someone, private detectives are also being engaged to keep an eye on such individuals, said Private Detective Rajani Pandit.
According to Rajani Pandit, this year seems to show a slight decrease in the craze for Garba. Compared to previous years, fewer people have taken up assignments this time. However, for ongoing work in Mumbai, private detectives are charging between ₹8,000 and ₹10,000 per person for each night. For Garba events outside Mumbai or even outside the state, the rates increase to ₹10,000 to ₹20,000. If the client's child is attending a Garba event and the passes are not provided by the client, the cost of acquiring those passes is added to the fee as well.
Rajani Pandit shared, "I recently received a case for detective work. In this case, the girl is Gujarati, and her fiancé is Punjabi. The fiancé suspects his future wife because she tells him that he doesn’t know how to play Garba and asks him not to come, while she herself goes out at night to play Garba. Due to this, the fiancé has become suspicious, and I have been assigned to keep an eye on her for the next two days," added Pandit.
