A video that shows people with tuberculosis (TB) and leprosy dancing their socks off is popular online.
Shot earlier this year in various locales in Kolkata and, including slums and TB clinics, the video titled Calcutta Rescue – Living In The City has garnered more than 16,000 views on social media platforms since May 15.
Dubbed #theworldscraziestdancemovie, the video features a 90-year-old granny dancing.
The inspiration for the video was a real life incident in one of the TB clinics belonging to Calcutta Rescue, a UK-based charity, said British citizen Sean Duggan.
Two women being treated for the disease were told their tests had come back clear, and they were so overjoyed with the news that they started dancing in the middle of the clinic.
“I thought, yes! That is what we are trying to do, bring happiness and hope back into people’s lives,” said Duggan. “So many people think about this work as relentlessly depressing. But it isn’t. Both the charity’s staff, and the people they serve, show so much resilience and love of life. And what better way to demonstrate that than through dance, for which India is rightly famous?”
Duggan arrived in India earlier this year with British photographer and musician Jacob Roos to film the video featuring TB clinic staff members, patients and even school children. The duo wanted to use the track Living in the City by British artist Rhys Lewis, as its words and music resonated with the charity’s work so well, and Lewis let them use it for free.
The film was shot in 12 different locations around the city, from the roof of a school in a red-light district to a mobile clinic parked in one of the city’s most deprived slums.
