Outside, traffic whizzes by. Inside, music pours from speakers, mixing with a hubbub of voices and the shuffle and slide of shoes on a wooden or cemented floor.

A sea of faces and the bodies of young and old of all shapes and sizes get reflected on mirrored walls. They eyeball peppy young instructors coaching them through step-by-step deconstructions of the waltz, the cha-cha, the samba, the tango, the salsa and the swing.

"Quick-quick slow, quick-quick slow. No don't look down at the floor, look up all of you!"

"Your hips, your hips and your feet watch it, be light, your hips should move, swing it, imagine, balancing on a tree!"

Suddenly, there is quick movement and measured steps at a little room in Greater Kailash 1 in south Delhi where you have to pay Rs.1,500 a month for classes twice a week of one and a half hours each.

A girl in a shirt, slacks and a groovy wide belt tangos by, guiding her taller partner through a maze of adults with a romantic flourish as perfect as the salsa. Twenty-three-year-old Sukhmani Bedi is part of a nationwide phenomenon: Western dancing is hot and everyone is making a beeline to take lessons and learn.

In the capital city itself there are classes in at least 25 centres all over the city in farflung corners. Ashley Lobo's Danceworx where Sukhmani goes is only one of the many.

A small suburb in Mumbai, a neighbourhood in Delhi, a small house in Chennai, a second storey flat in Kolkata - the twilight hours in all these places are exclusively reserved two or three times a week for urban dwellers to forget their pressures and put on their dancing shoes.

After decades of a low-profile existence, Western dancing is luring adults and children alike into a magical world of ladies and gentlemen, a place of rhythmic and formalised social exchange with its own rules of etiquette.

This surge in interest is largely media-driven.

For 20-year-old Jai, it was the Richard Gere-Jennifer Lopez film "Shall We Dance." Then there was the surprise hit documentary "Mad Hot Ballroom".

Preity Zinta's "Kal Ho Na Ho" sizzler "It's the Time to Disco" caught the fascination of school kids, as did Hrithik Roshan's "Its Magic!"

"I think the craze for dance stems from an inner energy that wants to find a release," says Ketan Kapoor who at 6ft 2inches thought he was too tall but became the most sought after for his height and agility.

"I think dance allows your body and your brain to breathe," says Sukhmani who became such a professional that Danceworx offered her a position.

"Now, people have seen that it's exciting, energising, it's aerobically athletic, and it's beautiful," says another dancer from Mumbai who dances every night.

Business has grown by nearly 30 percent in the last six months of the year at dance schools and rooms nationwide, according to John Issaac, who has been studying trends.

For Issaac who handles some of the classes in Andheri, Mumbai, "normal people" of all ages are realising that they can learn dance, "if not for the social elegance of it, then for its competitive athletic demands."

Many independent studio places have experienced a similarly noticeable influx of new students even in Kolkata where ballroom used to be a vital
sign of elegance.

So many people are suddenly willing to not only watch but also invest their time, money and energy in an activity that has for the most part remained under the pop culture radar for decades.

Learning to dance is a way to "connect in a city where nobody connects", says an elementary school teacher in Bangalore.

A look at the students' dance class couture reveals executive chic, floaty skirts, sexy dresses and high heels; shorts, bare midriffs, torn jeans, sneakers and flip-flops, rubber slippers among other things.

Of course, it takes practice and time to even begin to approach the elegance of Hrithik Roshan or Shah Rukh. But that doesn't deter some folks from putting on their dancing shoes and making way to their dance studios when the sun descends.