ISA celebrates Diwali

With drums and processions, the Indian Student Association celebrated Diwali one week late, but you wouldn't have known it from the excitement in the audience. The estimated 500 attendees were treated to contemporary Indian singing and dancing at the Saturday night program at Bloomington High School North.\nDiwali, or the "festival of lights," commemorates the victory march of the Hindu god Rama returning from the battle where he defeated evil. The holiday has evolved into the celebration of the new year in the Indian lunar calendar. Many people view it as a secular holiday, while some celebrate it religiously.\n"The Indian Student Association uses this event, which is the largest for us each year, to spread culture and increase diversity and awareness," said Nazia Khan, president of the ISA. "We are putting on a cultural show with singing, dancing and an Indian meal."\nRoughly 40 group members were involved in the one-and-a-half hour production as performers and stage hands. The eight main acts included contemporary dances like the bhangra and vocal selections, one of which was an original composition.\n"We have been preparing for a month, practicing three or four hours per day," said Rimi Gill, a dancer and third-year participant. "We even got kicked out of the SRSC because of liability issues, so we had to practice wherever we could." \nBut it all paid off at the performance.\n"This year was the best for dancing," Gill said.\nThe celebration, which was free to IU students, drew a larger-than-expected crowd, even though attendance was down from previous years. Purdue and IUPUI held their Diwali celebrations the same night.\n"Usually people from other schools come to our celebration, but this year they are at their own celebrations," said sophomore Dave Dhar, vice president of the ISA. "But just so you know, we planned ours before Purdue."\nMany students said they came to see their friends perform, and many said they came because they had always celebrated the holiday.\nSonia Chavan, a freshman in the audience, said she has always celebrated Diwali, and although this was different than any celebration she has ever participated in, she said she enjoyed it.\n"It is a good program because it brings the Indian culture together, especially since we are far away from our families," she said.\nDhar, who also participated in one of the acts, said the focus of the event is to enable more cultural exchange. \n"This is a chance to get people involved and bring the whole Bloomington community together," he said. "Is diversity a statistic, a number or a mindset? We are trying to cultivate mindsets of culture and diversity. You could have a campus of one percent Asian that is more diverse than a campus with 12 percent Asian. It's all in the mindset."\nThe celebration included many Indian songs, but there were also songs from Alicia Keys, Beyonce Knowles and Madonna, as well. With eight acts, this celebration was shorter than previous ones, mostly due to funding.\nThe association was hit hard last year when funding from the Commitment to Assist Student Initiatives ran dry. The association has been involved with many fund-raising initiatives, such as working at the football stadium, Dhar said.\nThe next major Indian Student Association event will be Masti, an event which draws more than 250 college students from the Midwest to Bloomington in late February. The event will last an entire weekend, and anyone can sign up for a fee of about $35.\nIf you would like to find more information about the Indian Student Association, visit its Web site at www.iub.edu/~isa or send it an e-mail at isa@indiana.edu.\n-- Contact staff writer John Keucher at jkeucher@indiana.edu.