The most celebrated and well-known Hindi festival made its way to campus on Friday.
With plenty of dancing, singing and cultural flare, the Midwestern Indian Students Association (MISA) presented their annual Diwali Dhamaka festival event on Nov. 30 in Akin Auditorium.
According to Dipika Nayak, vice president of MISA, Diwali Dhamaka is an annual Indian festival that takes place in either Oct. or Nov..
The purpose of MISA’s celebrations of Diwali Dhamaka in Akin were to allow students to experience another culture present on MSU’s campus.
“We want students to get to know Indian culture,” Nayak said. “Every time we have a cultural event we try to show them [students] our attire, the different colors that we use, and food, and different kinds of dance forms we have.”
In the days leading up to the event, MISA raised money for Diwali by selling henna tattoos, jewelry and food to students in the Clark Student Center.
Nayak explained food for each MISA event is ordered from this restaurant.
“For every event, we try to make changes in the food so we don’t serve the same food every time,” Nayak said.
For the Diwali show, MISA and participating students performed several traditional Indian dances, including a garba and dandiya dance with sticks, Bollywood and regional folk dances, and even some country two-stepping and swing.
“Frankly speaking, all of the performances were done in just two days,” said Hrishi Pathak, MISA treasurer.
Nayak admitted some dances were even practiced for just a few hours.
“It’s in our blood,” he said. “We dance to any music, any tune, any time.”
For the various dances, students wore colorful, traditional Indian attire that were decorated with sequins, beads and jewelry.
The clothes were already owned by the students in MISA.
“We [Indian students] usually have them,” Nayak said. “All Indians have a set of cultural attire, and this is the attire that we usually wear.”
Nick Rainey, a junior health sciences major, came to the Diwali event after he was invited by one of the dancers.
He said that he liked the show.
“I thought it was very entertaining and something that a lot more people should come out to see,” he said.
Sophomore Jaymina Patel, who is from Guharat, India, said she came out to support all of the Indian students and MISA.
She said she also enjoyed the performances, especially Pathak’s energetic dance with another male MISA student that featuring Pathak doing the iconic moonwalk.
“I think the guy’s dance was very good,” Patel said. “They took the whole show.”
Michael Shipley, faculty advisor and biology professor, also said the students were excellent.
Following the show, MISA members like Nayak and Pathak were happy with Diwali’s success in turnout and performance, especially considering the time they used to organize and publicize the show.
“Yes, we are really really happy about the turnout of so many people in just one week,” Pathak said.
For the first time, this group of students was made up of not only Indian students, but Caribbean and American students as well. Pathak said having students from other cultures participate in the Diwali show was the highlight of the evening.
“My favorite part of being in the event was actually being a part of an event which is now multicultural,” Pathak said. “Initially, when we started this organization it was just Indian students. Now we have students from all over campus.”
Nayak agreed with Pathak, citing making the event multicultural as her most enjoyable part of this experience.
“Initially, when we had such an event it was just the Indian students who would participate,” Nayak said. “But this time we had the Caribbean students who deliberately took part. We had the American students, and so for me, it’s that the event is multicultural.”