Acity that flaunts blue-and-white flags every World Cup and has hosted Albeceleste legends Maradona and Messi played host to another Argentinian recently.

Nicolas Sandez from Buenos Aires was in the city at an invitation of TangoConscious, an outfit promoted by Mumbai-based Aditi Jaiswal, to give lessons in tango.

'Like the Brazilian samba, tango started not in the dance studio but in low-class suburbia. The upper classes used to look down upon it. The form reached its pinnacle in the 1940s,' said Sandez, a tall 35-year-old with shoulder-length black hair.

Over the years, tango has evolved but it is the classical version that Sandez taught in Calcutta. 'Tango salon is sober and smooth, and meant for the dance floor. You score on how subtle you are. In contrast, there is tango de escenario (stage tango) in which the traditional subtle movements make way for elaborate acrobatic ones that can be seen from afar. Then there is tango nuevo, the modern version, where you can break the embrace with the partner and do free moves. In tango salon, the embrace can never be broken.' He pointed out how in the old days, each part of the country had its special tango. 'You could make out if one is dancing tango centro or tango villa Crespo from the style of the abrazo (embrace).'

Sandez himself started off as a jazz and swing dancer but took to tango seriously in 2008. 'In Argentina, if you walk into a coffee shop and listen to tango music, you can feel the lifestyle of the people and even the strong African roots of the dance form. Tango is as deep-rooted in Argentina as football. It is said if you can walk, you can tango. But the masters say it takes 20 years to learn how to walk in tango.'

Tango reached Paris in the 1940s, soon becoming part of Parisian culture. The birth of rock 'n' roll pushed tango out of the scene in the 50s. 'People thought it was for retired folks.'

But it made a comeback decades later, travelling to Broadway, where top dancers performed in the show Forever Tango and taught Americans. 'Robert Duvall and William Levy have been very serious students. Duvall comes to Buenos Aires to train. You can find him dancing in the milongas (tango parties).' Japan also took to tango seriously 40 years ago.

But Sandez does not recommend learning tango from Hollywood. 'Either the tango is good and the movie bad or vice versa,' he smiled, managing to name just one English film - The Tango Lesson -where the dance form passes scrutiny. 'What passes as tango in Hollywood is more of ballroom dance,' he said.

The students he got in Calcutta, he says, had an idea of the genre from YouTube. Sandez himself has more than a fair idea of the local flavour, Bollywood. 'I was in Mumbai when I got a call to do a dance for the film Kick. I was just behind Salman Khan in the song Jumme ki raat. The dance was a mix of hip hop and Bollywood style. I can be seen clearly as one of the patients of Jacqueline Fernandez towards the start. I had a moustache then,' he signed off.