Tuesday November3rd 2015 | campus@technewsn com la;!ii i : !E|7
ISA celebrates a glamorous formal night

Abha D almia
TECHNEWS WRITER

IIT’s Indian Student Association
(ISA) organization held its mostzawaited
annual fall event, The ISA Formal night, on
October 23, 2015. The fact that tickets sold out
within a record time of two hours indicates
how excited students were for this event.

The 99th floor of the Willis tower
served as the perfect location to celebrate the
important Hindu festival of Navratri, which is
a loeday festival ofworship and dance. Zain
Shethwala, Vice President of Marketing for
ISA, said that even though they encountered
difficulties negotiating for the venue, he is
glad they could secure it as he received a lot
of positive feedback from attendees after the
eVent. In addition, the committee intended to
change ISA’s image from an organization that
just provides good food at its events to one
that produces meaningful experiences for the
student body of IIT. Previously people would
just come to eat and leave; they wanted to
provide a backdrop where people would enjoy
mingling with one another and expanding
their networks.

Students had to take two sets of
lifts to get to the elegantlyzdecorated hall on
the 99th floor of the Willis tower Half of the
hall was set up with dinner tables designated

for eating and relaxing while the other half
boasted a huge, g1ittery black dance floor. The
venue was decorated in a very simp1istic and
e1egant manner by the student organizers,
with flower 1ights at the center of every tab1e
and an Indian flag disp1ayed with pride at four
opposite ends ofthe hall.

Students decked in their best Indian
attire started to trickle in by 7 pm. In an hour,
the hall was filled with color and glitter with
gir1s1ooking gorgeous and g1amorous in their
1enghas and men 1ooking dashing in their
Sherwanis. It was heartwarming to see that a
decent number of nonzIndian students had not
on1y made the effort to wear the Indian attire,
but a1so 1ooked abso1ute1y gorgeous as they
carried themse1ves with utter grace and beauty
The event witnessed students from China,
Korea, Magno1ia, Poland, Bulgaria, Chicago,
and Mexico, to name a few.

According to Shethwa1a, the
organization was making a conscious effort
towards achieving their goa1 of incorporating
students from a diverse range of backgrounds
in their organization and events. They
marketed this event through the genera1
Facebook group for IIT students as a forma1
night event where students get to learn about
the Indian culture to emphasize that everyone
is welcome to join ISA events. In addition,
they asked for song recommendations in any

1anguage from everyone to ensure that they
could cater to everyone’s taste in music

Upon entering the venue, the
organizers checked students in and gave them
raffle tickets. Then around 3 o’clock, they started
to call out groups of 15 at a time and gave the
“lucky" ones an opportunity to go to the sky
deck. About 100 students got free passes to
visit the sky deck, a part of which had been
cordoned off just for us. For many it was their
first time on the sky deck and the mesmerizing
view of Chicago provided students with amp1e
opportunity to click some Facebookzprofile
worthy pictures. This was fo11owed by dinner
where intemational students got to taste the
authentic Indian cuisine with a moderate
amount of spices that ensured that everyone’s
taste buds cou1d handle.

The most memorable aspect of this
event was a dance performance presented by
ISA organizers on a med1ey of popu1ar Indian
songs. The 2 weeks ofhard work and time these
passionate dancers put into this performance
was evident in their euphoric smi1es and
synchronicity According to a member of the
organizing committee, in previous years they
had random peop1e perform to a random
p1ay1ist ofBollywood songs; however this was
the first time that they had a team ofpassionate
dancers willing to put forth a performance.

After the dance performance, the

dance floor was open to everyone. The D]
started with p1aying Garba, Dandiya, and
Bhangra songs before gradua11y progressing
to the muchzloved Bollywood music. The DI’s
attempt at mixing English beats and Hardwell
songs with Bollywood music injected the
atmosphere with a 1ive1y sprit. Students
fami1iar with the comp1icated 127step Garba
sequence cou1d be seen teaching the amateur
dancers with much patience, pride and
encouragement. It was lovely to see everyone
present at the event, dancers as we11 as none
dancers, shaking their 1eg to Indian music.

Overall, students who have been
attending ISA events fee1 that it is drasticany
improving with each event. It is becoming
bigger and starting to organize events that
are more meaningfui and beneficial. They
had two other events this semester the career
workshop and picnic event that too garnered
very positive feedback. Moving forward, the
committee hopes to host events that create
and extract meaningfu1 va1ue for not just the
Indians in IIT but for all nationa1ities, with the
aim to integrate the IIT community further.

The next event that they are
current1y working on is one where an array of
organizations on campus that deal with issues
of racial discrimination will darify common
misconceptions.

 

Photos courtesy ofA bha Dolmio and Indian StudenzAssociafion