Salsa kings, belly belles...

, not just in clubs or on TV. Dance classes are our latest entertainment.

Dr Preeti Rao, a Mumbai-based dentist, has a double life. Every morning and evening, you will find her at her clinic in the suburbs. But try tracking her in the afternoons "" 2 pm to 6 pm "" and, at times, later in the night, and you will be surprised: Rao will be found belly dancing!

The doctor, in her late twenties, with no formal training in dance, is a part-time dance instructor. She grew up in Saudi Arabia, where she picked up a few moves watching other women belly dance, but started training in Mumbai quite accidentally.

"I used to go to a fitness club and Shakira was quite popular then. One of the girls who worked out with me said she wanted to dance like the pop star and I said I could show her some moves."

To cut the story short, the fitness club urged Rao to take weekly classes and she started with just 10 students. Today, two years down the line, there are almost 700 on the rolls at her studio, Pulse, that has two branches in the city.

And everyone from students to bankers, hair-dressers and TV celebrities are joining in. "These are women," says Rao "who are keen to dance not because they want to perform somewhere, even at a club, but who dance because they want to. As a form of entertainment, for their own selves."

In Delhi, Amir Ahmed, an entrepreneur dealing in Persian carpets, is a veteran when it comes to ballroom dancing. Having run his Ballrumours Dance Studio in the city for several years, Ahmed, an alumnus of the Delhi School of Music and also proficient in Jazz, Tap and Latino, is finding success where he never imagined.

Ruchika Mehta, a young hotelier who enrolled for his class, points out how many elderly couples seem keen students: "Perhaps this is a way in which they can pass their time in a lively way."

In Bangalore, Lourd Vijay, who runs a fairly well-known studio training students in everything from the Salsa and Merengue to the Cha Cha and Jive , believes that "there are few short-cuts to happiness and dance is one of them!" His studio promises to equip anyone who has dance "in his soul" and indeed, it seems that very many do.

You have seen it in the huge response to dance-based reality shows on the telly. You may have even seen it happening in clubs (many new ones are coming up in the metros, a trend related to the renewed interest in dancing) all across the country.

The fact is that more and more Indians are dancing like never before. And most for their own selves. With forms like the Salsa and Street Jazz spilling over from music videos and films into real life, dance seems to have unanimously emerged as a leisure activity of choice "" distinct from professional performances and choreographed sangeets at the great Indian weddings.

Even five years ago, this was not quite true. While Indian Classical forms contended with waning students (they still do), people like Shiamak Davar thrived mainly on work coming out of Bollywood. And dance schools, in general, focussed on a handful of students keen to be professionals. Television, credited by many for fuelling today's huge interest, did have a very popular show in Boogie Woogie but the format possibly wasn't smart enough to entice imitators.

Kaytee Namgyal, dance instructor, perhaps the biggest name in Salsa in the country, started his career seven years ago "because it was something I enjoyed. I never imagined the business would grow so much."

Today, his company Salsa India runs more than 17 studios (teaching all kinds of dances) in the metros besides organising annual Salsa festivals with participants from all over the world. Last year, the number went up to 1,000 but this is tiny compared to the number of people who've learnt from Namgyal and his team and regularly turn up for Salsa nights organised by them every week in hip clubs in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.

"People come because this is a way of socialising and having fun... It is like learning a new language, after you have learned to speak, you need to converse..."

The most popular dance forms today are Street Jazz and Salsa, perhaps because these are both trendy even internationally. "People see music videos and want to dance like that," Namgyal adds, a view echoed by Rao.

But another reason for the popularity of these forms is that these dances are "100 per cent fun and can be picked up by any one in four to six weeks," Namgyal says, as opposed to Indian forms (Classical) which need more dedicated and serious followers.

Many enroll in these classes seeking entertainment or a way to fitness, couples seek quality time together and now, there is a fresh audience by way of corporates, executives who enroll en masse as a way to de-stress and have a fun co-curricular activity.

Amidst all this, the inhibited Indian seems to have loosened up considerably. Rao sees a change in perceptions when she says people no longer regard belly dancing merely as "dance by scantily clothed women to entertain men". A way of life has altered.