Attendees to the annual India Night, the Indian Student Association’s major cultural event, flocked through the front doors of the La Sells Center this past Saturday to celebrate ISA’s biggest event of the year.
According to co-president Kaushik Dontula, a 4th-year computer science major, advance ticket sales for the event reached 700, filling the majority of La Sells auditorium.
“India night allows us to share India’s diverse talents with the OSU community,” said ISA co-president Mandaakini Raghuraman, a 4th-year computer science and business double major.
Following the Indian and American national anthems, members of the ISA committee walked onto the auditorium stage wearing an array of brightly colored saris, lehengas and kurthas to share a video introducing the night made by the ISA committee.
The audience laughed with the antics in the video, including silly skits about marketing, playful jokes about planning all in a video styled after the show The Office. The audience applauded loudly as the committee members broke into a choreographed Bollywood-fusion dance.
Following this, the duo Dancing Sundaris, Nidih Nagaraj and Likhila Vavilapalli, performed a mashup dance of semi-classical Bharatanatyam and Bollywood. Bharatanatyam is an Indian dance style originating from Tamil Nadu, India. The dance style is known for its grace and connection to Indian religion. Bharatanatyam is the oldest classical dance style in india.
As the lights dimmed, another duo stepped onstage. Sisters Aishwarya and Amrita Menon greeted the audience in their pink and purple sarees to perform a series of songs.
Dancers Deethya Vishwanatha and Shibani Nagarajan took to the stage as the Menon sisters left. Their yellow sarees glowed, their anklets jingled as they danced, their moves a medley of Bollywood styles.
Next, the OSU-based music group, Swara, brought a guitar, violin, and piano onstage to sing a Bollywood-style song.
The final act before intermission was OSU’s Kinetic Dance team, a K-pop dance group on campus. The group of four performed a dance number before they were joined by the rest of the dancers to perform a second act, all in matching black and red outfits.
As the audience applauded for Kinetic, the house lights came back on and the seated audience rose for intermission– and the buffet.
This year’s India Night was catered by Royal India Cuisine. According to a speech given by ISA co-president Kaushik Donatula, a thousand servings of white rice, naan, dal Makhani, Paneer Tikka, and kheer were delivered to feed the attendees.
Percussionist Sourabh More greeted the audience as they sat for the post-intermission show. More performed… before joining the next act, to complete the duo SurMatrix with Shubhanker Joshi, a professionally trained singer.
The night finished with OSU’s dance group Garni, who performed a DANCE-style dance with complex storylines built within, and lighting changes to add to the drama. One part of the dance showed multiple dancers making supposed gunshots and one dancer falling to the floor, followed by pulse like dances from the team to imitate a heartbeat.
As the night came to its end, the ISA committee came back onto the stage to thank the audience.
According to ISA vice president Khushboo Desai, “The event was very successful, we had great turnout, and everyone loved the food.”
