India Night 2006- A Journey to Remember

The introduction goes like.. " India Night is perhaps the most vibrant of events on campus...and gives ISA the opportunity to showcase talents in areas like singing, dancing etc.."

Yeah, thats India Night for you .. Songs, Dances, Medleys ... it's time to Disco ..

India Night 2006 happened on 8th April 2006 in Bone Student Center, Circus Room. 3 hours of music, dances, fun and frolic.

ISA's contribution to this event, except the organisation and logistics, was a 10minute Medley of Songs & Dance & a 7minute Fashion Show.

The medley include some of the most popular numbers like Dhoom Machale Dhoom, Kajra Re, Dus Bahane, Paathshala. Top top it off,as usual, ISA had the audience tasting the patriotic flavor with the song "Hindustani" from the unreleased film "Dus", the Sanjay Dutt-Mukul Anand duo blast which did not materialise.




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The dances were a minute and half sequences with people hopping in and out on to the stage.

Although the dance were barely 10minute long, the practice for the dance must have gone beyond 40hours easily. Thats the way it is, some people have grown so old and unenthusiastic that they need to be pushed into participating ! So be it, this time we had a good turnout of participants.

The dances were being set by looking all over the place for videos, long lost videos being hunted down virtually from anywhere in the world ( the web makes this easy ;-) )

So the dances were set and the list was :

Dhoom Machale Dhoom : Myself, Ruchir, Dushyanth, Punit
, Vennela
Ban Than Chali : Venkat, Pranali, Akash
Paathshala : Myself, Punit, Dushyanth, Venkat
Kajra Re : Myself, Grishma, Punit
Dus Bahane : Venkat, Pranali, Akash
Hindustani : Myself, Punit, Abir, Akash, Dushyanth, Ruchir, Pranali, Grishma, Vennela

So the stage was all set and our performance was set for 7:30 pm. Prior to our performances, the South Indian dances like BharatNatyam, Kuchipudi etc were scheduled. We were worried that the crowd might lose their interest after going through a patience test like this... But there was no better way to cheer up the crowd than from our peppy numbers ..

After a long long wait of 2 hours including a 30minute delay which was even worse, we got our turn to rock the stage.

It was turn for the fashion idols of ISA to burn up the stage with traditional, western and a fusion sequence...Traditional was lighted up by the popular Karunesh number - Punjab, the western was marked by the Raaga number Dont Be Shy and the fusion sequence rocked the stage with the sizzling number "Come To Me" from Bluffmaster. Antoinette D'Souza, our very own ISA@ISU Alumni and now ISA's Faculty Advisor was our fashion designer and the choreographer too.
The diya-effect at the start lighted up the whole room and captured the audience.
It was a Fashion Show well executed with some nice sequences and some great attire.

Fashion Show Troupe: Grishma, Akash, Dushyanth, Sindhuri, Vennela, Vinay, Ruchir, Abir, Pranali, Sridevi, Zaheer and a couple of African Americans in the fusion sequence.

Once the fashion show was done, we had to collect our thoughts which were totally destroyed by the awesome splendor shown by the participants in the Fashion Show.

And finally it was time for the dance medley. The medley began and within no time it was over ! It was like a hurricane which hit the audience and before anyone could gasp a breath, it was over. Everyone had done a splendid job but there were a lot of minor goof ups too ! We enjoyed the dance and so did the audience... All we could hear were screams and screeches of "Woooooo...Ohoooo... Yeahhhhhhhhh..." and lots and lots of whistles and claps...

Punit did an awesome surprise stunt at the end of Kajra Re...by falling flat when Grishma was showing off her grace

Minor goof ups here and there but it was a terrrrrific and thoroughly enjoyable dance...

Once the dance was done , it was time for "Sparsh" the Retro band to rock some of the most remembered Bollywood numbers. Sparsh, a Chicago based Retro band was performing with a full set of sound equipment which took about 2 hours to be set up and tested. They played some really amazing music and there were we againd dancing like mad freaks in front of the stage. The band was playing and we were dancing as if we were some other dimension. For some time, we had forgotten we were in US. Sparsh had actually made us "touch" back to our Indian roots of music and dance.

By 11, we had wrap up the show and clean up the room and India Night had come to an end. The 3-4 hours had gone by in no time and we were speechless at the end as to how the evening actually went. Nobody had a clue how time flew. Alas, India Night had to end. No more practices, no more rehearsals no more of the fun that we had during practice... India Night and all of the time before that we had spent in preparing has been unforgettable and will remain to be so. Now we can look at the videos of our dances and laugh our hearts out at the goof ups, but deep within we will be remembering all the good times we had ...

Cheers to India Night Participants ...!

You can watch the videos at the following URL:
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=india+night+2006

Or
View the Video here Itself...










-- Pics have also been uploaded to Yahoo Photos. Click on the Link below to view them

India Night 2006 Pictures