Hasmeet Singh Chandok takes a moment to collect his thoughts and catch his breath before speaking. An average week in Hasmeet’s life is exhausting enough — he’s a full-time Dalhousie graduate student, working for the Dal Libraries as a navigator, all the while maintaining a 4.0 GPA and doing countless hours of community work that in the past couple of years has resulted in thousands of dollars being raised for charities. But, the past couple of weeks have been even busier for Hasmeet because he’s the co-founder/manager and spokesperson for the Maritime Bhangra Group, a local dance troupe whose video of two dancers at Peggy’s Cove has gone viral since being posted on September 23.

The 55-second video of the men dressed in traditional Punjab clothing while joyously dancing in the Bhangra style on the iconic rocks has been viewed more than nine million times in less than three weeks. The group has been featured on Yahoo Canada’s main page and over the past few weeks, Hasmeet has done interviews with BBC, Euronews and NPR, as well local and Canadian media such as The Huffington Post Canada, Buzzfeed Canada, Halifax Metro, Global, CTV, and CBC.

“It was just a short, fun clip, but people are really relating to the video. There are so many emotional comments that sometimes when I read them I just want to cry. People have told us things like, ‘I have to work many hours to cover my expenses. When I am in tears, I watch your video and smile in tears.’ Someone else said, ‘I just found you and I never want to lose you,’” says Hasmeet.

Bhangra dancing comes from the Majha region of Punjab. It started as a martial arts dance and was traditionally performed by men, but women do it now as well. Each dance is carefully choreographed. Hasmeet’s brother, Kunwardeep Singh, is the Maritime Bhangra Group’s chief choreographer.

“[In Punjab] Bhangra is a part of life. For any happy occasion, we dance. You just see everyone around you dancing at gatherings and that’s how you learn. Every person has a set of moves they are very good at. I only have one or two, my brother has many,” says Hasmeet.

The troupe was just formed in July and has six principle dancers, plus Hasmeet, who is more on the managing/booking side of things. He sometimes dances as well. “My brother had been performing Bhangra at events at Dal and other places for the past four years. I sometimes danced with him. But we always did it in a volunteer capacity. Then we got the idea to make it a professional group so we could tour around Nova Scotia and the Maritimes,” he says. Hasmeet is always looking for new ways to spread awareness about the Sikh community and culture.

The group did not realize they had done anything special or different when they created the Peggy’s Cove video — they had been posting videos on their Maritime Bhangra Group Facebook page since they’d formed in July — so they were immediately surprised by the initial reaction to the video. “From day one, it got a lot of views. Most of our videos get 2,000, to 5,000 views. I can’t remember how many we got in the first couple of days, but it was more than double what we normally get. At the time, we just thought it was good; we had no idea what was coming,” says Hasmeet.

“The video is most popular in Canada, then in the US, then in Thailand. It was not a part of our dream to become famous. I don’t know how this is happening, but it is happening,” he says.

Hasmeet has already figured out that he can use his newfound fame to give a platform to his passions, which include charity work/fundraising and interfaith harmony. “So far the group has done an appearance to raise funds for the IWK Foundation,” he says. “We do as many charity appearances as we can.” Upcoming appearances for the United Nations and Big Brothers Big Sisters are in the works.

His fellow troupe members have been coping well with their new stardom, too. “They’re very happy. Their lives have changed from this experience. People stop them on the streets and stop them at work. Recently, we went to buy food and the person wouldn’t accept money from us,” says Hasmeet.

The immediate future plans of the dance troupe include the many appearances that they have recently booked and more charity events. “The days I do charity are the days I feel good. I live by what my dad, Surjit Singh Chandok, who passed in 2012, used to say, ‘Anything you achieve today, it should just be for today. The next morning when you get up, you should think about what difference you can make that day,’” says Hasmeet. Not one to rest on their laurels, the troupe is also planning another video, one that will include a message with the hope of “changing something in the world.”

Hasmeet came to Canada from India in 2013, when he arrived at Dal to study in the faculty of computer science. Despite living here only three years, he already has a strong connection to Nova Scotia, which shows in a number of the videos made by the Maritime Bhangra Group.

“We want to show this beautiful province to the whole world. The respect I get here and the love I get from people here makes me want to give back to this community. But, we are seven men wearing turbans and beards, we still get stares. We want to educate people. We came here so it’s our responsibility to do that; I can’t expect people to go and read about me when they don’t even know who I am. So, this is a way of telling them who I am, where I come from and why I do this.”

The Maritime Bhangra Group are:

Hasmeet Singh Chandok (Dal student)
Kunwardeep Singh (Dal alumnus)
Harpreet Singh (Dal alumnus)
Bikramjit Singh (Mohawk College alumnus)
Davinder Singh (SMU alumnus)
Deepinder Singh (Dal student)
Chirag Sharma (Dal alumnus)

To learn more about the Maritime Bhangra Group, read this profile by Ryan McNutt.