When Delivery Agents Turn into Garba Dancers — What Viral Moments Say About India’s Changing Culture

In early October 2025, a video captured the internet’s imagination: delivery agents from Zomato, Swiggy, Zepto, and Blinkit — typically competitors in the fast-delivery race — were seen dancing Garba together during Navratri. The clip went viral, turning from a simple festive moment into a powerful statement on unity, social media, labor visibility, and culture in modern India.

That viral moment is not just a fleeting entertainment clip. It reflects deeper trends in Indian society: how everyday workers are increasingly reclaiming their visibility, how social media can recast labor identities, how cultural rituals evolve, and how the boundaries between “ordinary people” and “digital culture” are blurring.

In this blog, we’ll explore:

1. The background and anatomy of the viral Garba video

2. Why it resonated so widely

3. What it reveals about labor, class, and digital culture in India

4. Comparisons with other viral cultural moments

5. Risks, criticisms, and blind spots

6. What this suggests about the future of Indian viral culture

Let’s dive in.

The Viral Moment: Delivery Agents Dancing Garba

What exactly happened

During Navratri 2025, a video surfaced showing delivery agents belonging to competing platforms — Zomato, Swiggy, Zepto, Blinkit — dancing full of zest to Garba, a traditional Gujarati folk dance. The video was posted by user @vks_lohat with the caption “Garba paglu,” and within hours, it became a sensation across platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Instagram reels, and WhatsApp forwards. 

Netizens referred to them humorously as “desi power rangers” (a nod to superhero teams) and joked about the reason for delays in deliveries. But behind the laughter was a surprising, moving image: workers — typically seen as background in the consumption economy — celebrating culture openly, with joy, in public.

The surprising aspects

• Unity across competition: Normally, delivery agents from rival companies are pitted against one another (for incentives, ratings, orders). Seeing them dance together disrupted that competitive frame.

• Visibility of labor: These agents are everywhere in cities — on bikes, on foot, racing to doorsteps — but seldom seen as full human beings with emotions, celebration, identity. This video nudged people to see them differently.

• Cultural expression reclaimed: Garba is a festive dance, traditionally rooted in Gujarat and Navratri culture. Here, the workers were expressing this heritage despite their background roles in a gig economy.

• Virality as amplification: The clip exploded online, turning local celebration into national conversation — a classic example of how digital culture elevates moments.

 Public reactions and commentary

Reaction was overwhelmingly positive. Many praised the unity and spirit of the workers. Some memes joked about “delivery delay for Garba” or “they’re dancing instead of delivering.” Meanwhile, many social media users appreciated that those often invisible in city life got their moment. The viral wave also spurred commentary: what does such a moment mean in a labor-driven, gig-economy India?

 Why It Resonated — The Anatomy of Virality

What makes a social media video go viral isn’t just luck — it’s a combination of emotional resonance, context, novelty, and shareability. Let’s break down why this particular clip struck the right chords.

Emotional appeal

People love stories of underdogs, unexpected unity, and dignity in simplicity. The video tapped into:

• Empathy: Many of us see delivery agents daily yet rarely think of their lives. This humanized them.

• Joy and celebration: In times of stress, people gravitate toward videos that make them smile.

• Cultural resonance: Garba is already emotionally strong among many, especially in Gujarat and among those celebrating Navratri.

Novelty & surprise

• You don’t expect delivery agents to stop and dance, especially together across brands. That surprise factor helps virality.

• The contrast — stiff economic roles vs free dance — creates a visual dissonance that draws attention.

Social media dynamics & amplification

• Platforms reward short, sharable content. Reels, Shorts, TikToks help such moments spread quickly.

• Once a few influencers or media pick it up, further amplification happens through retweets, shares, reposts.

• Hashtags, memes, and commentary increase visibility and engagement.

Cultural moment & timing

• It’s Navratri — a time when many Indians are already tuning into Garba content, aligning the video with a seasonal wave.

• The delivery economy is hyper-visible in current urban life, especially as online ordering is ubiquitous.

• Audiences are primed for “real-life” moments, not just polished content, reinforcing authenticity.

 What It Reveals About India Today

Beyond being a feel-good clip, this viral moment is a lens through which we can examine deeper social, economic, and cultural currents.

Labor & dignity in gig economy

Gig economy workers (delivery agents, riders, freelancers) form the backbone of modern Indian urban life. Yet they are often invisible: rated, timed, incentivized, but rarely celebrated as full persons.

This video moment:

• Presents them as more than “last-mile logistics” — as people with joys, cultures, emotions.

• Challenges the “worker as background” narrative.

• Invites reflection: if they can pause and dance, why are they expected to always run?

In a way, it’s a small reclaiming of dignity through public cultural expression.

Blurred boundaries between consumption and culture

The agents, typically linked with consumption — delivering food, groceries — become cultural actors themselves. In current digital times, lines between labor, entertainment, and culture are increasingly porous.

Unity beyond brand competition

In commercial narratives, brand competition is fierce. But socially, this video suggests certain human realities transcend corporate divides. Rival agents uniting to dance paints a picture of shared humanity beyond the consumer-brand frame.

The “viral uplift” effect

When moments like this blow up, they rediscover the familiar in new light. The invisible becomes visible. The trivial becomes profound. The ordinary becomes extraordinary. That’s the power of virality in current Indian digital culture.

Other Viral Cultural Moments & Comparisons

This isn’t an isolated instance. Let’s look at other recent viral moments in India to see patterns, differences, and what they say about our culture.

Men in sarees performing Garba (Saduma na Garba)

In Gujarat, a tradition called Saduma na Garba involves men wearing sarees to dance Garba on the 8th night of Navratri. A viral video revived this practice and sparked debate about gender, ritual, and identity. 

This moment overlaps with our delivery agents’ video in that both:

• Challenge conventional gender or role norms,

• Use dance/ritual as a medium for expression,

• Generate viral discourse that blends tradition and modernity.

The “Gemini AI saree” trend

A digital trend: using Google’s Gemini Nano Banana tool, people convert ordinary selfies or images into stylized “Bollywood saree” images. It’s an AI-powered fashion filter craze. Ratan Tata's aide, Shantanu Naidu, hilariously remarked people already have many sarees — so why virtual ones? 

This is a different kind of virality — in the realm of augmented identity and visual play.

Viral refusal at Asia Cup award ceremony

After Team India beat Pakistan in the Asia Cup 2025 final, the Indian team refused to accept their medals or trophy from PCB chief Mohsin Naqvi, hinting at political overtones. Then, they enacted a mock ceremony. This bold act went viral, making a match moment into a political-cultural statement. 

Like the delivery agents’ dance, this moment reimagines a conventional structure (award ceremony) into something unexpected and loaded with meaning.

 Viral musical hits: “Shaky”, “That Girl”

The song “Shaky” went viral across YouTube, Instagram reels, and music charts globally.  Similarly, a 19-year-old from Punjab, Paramjit Kaur (Param), shot to fame with her song That Girl, gaining millions of views in days. 

Music-driven virality often bypasses traditional gatekeepers, elevating fresh voices or novel content. That dynamic echoes in the Garba video: a spontaneous moment elevates invisible people.

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Potential Risks, Critiques & Blind Spots

Viral moments can be magical, but they also come with pitfalls, misinterpretations, and contradictions. Let’s examine what cautions and critiques the Garba video phenomenon invites.

Tokenism & one-off romanticizing

• One moment doesn’t change structural conditions: dancing in a video is joyful, but doesn’t fix low wages, lack of social security, or precarious working conditions.

• Moment vs Movement: Social media tends to celebrate the spectacle rather than the substance—momentary visibility may fade without lasting support.

Myth of equal participation

• While the video suggests equality across brands, the reality of their working conditions, pay, incentives, and treatment may be very different. The smiles may mask underlying disparity.

• Not every worker has the “luxury” to pause. Many may still struggle with high delivery targets, low margins, or unsafe conditions.

 Over saturation & desensitization

• When many such videos flood social media, novelty diminishes. Audiences may lose sensitivity and return to seeing workers as faceless again.

• Also, virality often rewards the performative rather than the systemic solution.

 Exploitation of viral content

• Media or brands might co-opt the moment, turning it into marketing or PR without addressing the root issue.

• Workers may be asked to repeat such “viral acts” for content, which can be demeaning or forced.

Selective amplification & digital gaps

• Virality tends to privilege urban, digitally connected spaces. Rural, less connected labor remains invisible.

• Algorithms amplify what is already popular, so similar acts in smaller towns may never reach the spotlight.

What This Suggests for the Future of Indian Virality

If the Garba video is a kind of “signal,” what might it predict about how content, culture, and labor will intertwine in the coming months and years?

More “real-life” labor moments

Audiences are increasingly drawn to authenticity. Expect to see more viral content centering everyday workers — delivery agents, sanitation workers, street vendors — in unguarded, joyful, candid moments.

Cultural re appropriation

Digital culture will continue merging tradition and modernity. Rituals once confined to temples or seasonal festivals will find new life on reels, TikToks, memes, and AR filters. Cultural identity becomes a playing field as much as a heritage.

Worker-driven storytelling

If workers, themselves, begin to control the narrative — capturing their stories, rituals, joys — virality may shift from being observer-driven to creator-driven. That’s more equitable.

Corporate & platform responsibility

Platforms and brands might face increasing pressure to not only celebrate such moments but also back them with policies: better protections, fair pay, health benefits.

The virality lifecycle

In future, viral content may go through more predictable phases: spontaneous, amplified, co-opted, critiqued, forgotten — with occasional resurgence. Understanding that life cycle helps creators and watchers stay critical.

The video of delivery agents dancing Garba is not just a fleeting viral GIF — it’s a flash-point. It brings into focus how social media reconfigured visibility, how culture and work intermingle, and how the human behind labor can reclaim a moment of joy and identity.

While it’s dangerous to over interpret any single clip, it’s equally dangerous to ignore its echoes. What we choose to do with viral moments — whether we let them pass, commercialize them, critique them, or build upon them — will shape the narrative of digital India in the years ahead.