The evening of Saturday, April 14 was celebrated as Holi Night 2018 at Tech. The Indian Students Association organized this event to honor the festival of Holi with more than 300 people attending the event. Holi festival marks the advent of spring prominently in the Indian subcontinent and is now celebrated across the entire world with varied colors and food delights as part of this ancient tradition.
This year’s Holi Night, like every year, was punctuated with extraordinary music and dance performances to complement the various delicacies made by the members of ISA. The ISA is known for its food preparation and their immense variety of dishes. This event was no exception with both spicy and tasty food being served to the attendees who lined up with high expectations.
The starter consisted of Paneer chili, a medium-spicy dish consisting of a thick sauce with a sweet and sour taste with soy sauce and vinegar granting tang and flavor with complementary ingredients like ginger and garlic adding to the overall composition of the food. This dish was one of the highlights of the dinner with diced pieces of Paneer, spring onion, and various types of capsicum with a dash of other garnishing condiments making it the crowd’s instant favorite. It was followed by a huge main course which included Chicken Chettinad, which is made by marinating chicken overnight and then cooking it in whole roasted spices and topping it with black pepper, cloves, cumin powder and a simple garnish of grated coconut, which reinforces its authentic taste. The third dish was the cashew butter masala, which had a rich flavor with cream as one of its major ingredients along with sautéed onions and tomatoes cooked to perfection, imparting a mouth-watering taste. This was followed by Tava Pulav, a common rice dish with colorful ingredients including numerous veggies and heavy garnishing. The last item on the menu and definitely the most sought-after dish of the evening was the sugared mango pulp, which is made by passing it through muslin to remove the fibrous strands of fruit. It is frequently consumed with Pooris, an eternal favourite of every Indian household made delicately with unleavened bread made of wheat flour dough that is soft yet chewy, round in shape and fluffy, a must-have for special occasions like this. The cooking team consisted of many members who had cooked over 1000 such Pooris and had put in countless hours over the past few days to bring such lovely dishes to the table. The cooking team was led by Gaurav Bagwe and Aakash Dhusane who worked along with many others in the food preparations.
After the dinner, a series of post-dinner performances began with the music committee’s opening act featuring Madhur Bhuchake, a graduate student from data science department, and Armin Kalita from the physics department and Anurag Kamal’s accompanying guitar. Those mesmerizing voices set up the post-dinner mood perfectly, followed by some soulful singles including “Tum Ho,” a Bollywood movie song by a rebel artist sung by Aseem Upadhyay, a graduate student from the computer science department. Aniket Samel revisited the golden era of Indian Bollywood music with his “Kashmir ki Kali” and classic “Chand sa Roshan Chehra.” The final performance was perhaps the best with Aseem singing the immortal lyrics of Louis Armstrong’s stirring “It’s a Wonderful World.” A tribute was performed by the music committee for its members who are graduating this semester with a heartfelt song about friendships and the bond between friends, “Yarriyan.” After these moving performances, which touched the deepest emotions of the attendees, the dance committee was responsible for getting the audience on their feet.
Pravin Iyer and Arun Varkey presented a series of dance compilations with entertaining music accompanied by Utakarsh, Sampath, Vatsal and Omkar who topped the act with many Bollywood numbers. Pranav Kalantri’s dance team is an integral part of any dance-related performance in all of the ISA events. This group makes sure to reach the heart and soul of the audience every single time with adrenaline-infused moves in sync with equally groovy beats.
After those amazing performances, Aniket Samel, the former president of ISA for the year 2017-18 called his team onto the stage and formally welcomed the newly formed team, led by Sai Shiva Manikanta, the new president of ISA for the 2018-19 school year. The Holi Colors event, which was supposed to be held on April 15, was postponed due to hazardous snow storm warnings; the new date of the event will be released soon. For any questions regarding this or further events of ISA please contact Sai Shiva Manikanta at (906) 370-9261 or Utkarsha Negi at (906) 370-8091.
