Every autumn, Hindus celebrate Diwali, or the festival of light, with food, music, dancing, lamps and fireworks. Saturday night, the University’s Students of the Indian Subcontinent will pay homage to this five-day celebration in the EMU.
“This is our first venue for people to meet other new people,” said SIS Co-Director Bhavaya Sachdeva, a senior general science major who has been planning Diwali Night for most of the term.
Though Diwali is primarily an Indian tradition, all students are welcome. Many students in SIS are not Indian, Sachdeva said, adding that members are a diverse group from India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives, Myanmar, and Bhutan, among other nearby nations.
“We didn’t want to have just an Indian student association, like other schools have,” she said. “There’s not enough of an Indian population. We have people from basically everywhere.”
Diwali Night will feature music, dancing, rangoli, and authentic Indian cuisine catered by the Indo-Pak Food Association.
Rangoli, a Sanskrit word meaning creative expression of art through use of color, is an Indian tradition where the floors of homes are painted to provide a colorful welcome for visitors. SIS will not be painting the floor of the Fir Room; instead, they will use colored sand.
Food will include chicken korma, a mild curry dish; daal maknahi, lentils and kidney beans simmered in a creamy sauce of butter, onions, tomatoes and spices; naan, a round flatbread; popular dessert gulab jamon, fried balls of dough; and shahi paneer, a vegetarian dish which is Sachdeva’s favorite. Paneer is a North Indian form of cheese that is comparable to tofu.
Bryan Saxton, a junior journalism major and the International Student Association public relations officer, is volunteering to help set up Diwali Night.
“It’s an excellent opportunity for SIS to showcase what they can do,” he said. “It’s just one example of what the many international student groups on campus can do.”
Saxton, who loves Indian food, is most looking forward to the chicken korma. Chris Navarro, a University freshman, is also excited to attend Diwali Night.
“I heard it was a lot of food and a lot of fun last year and I wanted to experience it for myself,” Navarro said.
Another Diwali Night draw is the dancing, which is always Sachdeva’s favorite part. In addition to open floor dancing, there is dandia, a Gujrati custom where men and women dance in pairs while holding bamboo sticks. Dandia is seen as a celebration of good over evil, which is similar to what Diwali itself represents. In Hinduism, darkness represents ignorance, while light symbolizes knowledge. By lighting lamps during the festival of light, people are using knowledge to vanquish the world’s evils, including wickedness, violence, envy, lust, bigotry and oppression.
“It gets everyone involved and anyone can just jump in,” said SIS Co-Director Will Kancharla, a senior biology major. “If you don’t know how, there’ll be someone who can teach you.”
Dandia is Kancharla’s favorite aspect of Diwali Night, though he also enjoys seeing other people having a good time at the event.
“You put work into it and it pays off when you see people have fun,” he said.
Sachdeva, who was born in New Delhi and raised in Eugene, has been involved in SIS since her freshman year, though she attended several of the group’s events when she was in high school. She said Diwali Night is a good opportunity to share her Indian culture with others.
“Most images I see representing India are not necessarily true,” she said. “If we can show people a different side – not just ‘oh, there’s poverty and a third-world country’ – I think it helps.”
Kancharla feels the same way.
“Anytime we get a chance to show what kind of culture and background we’re from, it gives other people an opportunity to see,” he said. “It’s a pretty good showcase of what Indians are about.”
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