Two of the Indian communities at our University organized a cultural evening called ” Aarambh “, which means “start,” to mark the 63rd Indian Republic Day and welcome the Indian students who arrived at N.C . State for the spring semester.
The event focused on Indian culture and heritage; it was an evening full of games, Indian music and food.
Sneh Kumar Singh, the president of Maitri , was happy with the way the evening unfolded, and said it was an attempt to showcase their culture and befriend Indian students who arrived at State for the spring semester.
“As Indians, we all carry an image of India in our hearts, 7,000 miles away from home. We want to project that image to the N.C State students here what is the culture of India. So we organize these events with passion and zeal.” Singh said.”We attempt to make students here feel at home and less homesick, reach out to these students and support them like a family would.”
Singh said that these organizations wanted to have a night that emphasized the Indian national symbols and integrating nationals away from home.
“The theme was defined by the colors of saffron, green and white, which are [the] colors of the Indian national flag and at the same time sending out a message to all Indian international students that ‘we are here for you.’ As their first contact and first friend in the USA, they can rely on us,” Singh said.
He said it was done at a much grander scale than the usual events organized by Maitri , but wasn’t very expensive
“To make it a big successful event, we tried doing it at a grander scale by giving away prizes like Apple iPods, Philips music players, N.C . State sweatshirts and authentic Indian food, all for a token amount of [one] dollar for all the people who attend[ ed ] the event,” Singh said.
He said that they faced a lot of issues organizing the event, because those involved are all graduate students with heavy coursework.
“We had to do all the running around for the sponsorships, despite being graduate students with heavy coursework at State. It takes a considerable amount of effort, so we hope we can get even more sponsors for our upcoming events and make it even bigger next time with a greater attendance,” Singh said.
Singh expressed happiness for successfully pulling off the event despite a bigger attendance than expected.
“We expect usually a crowd of 100-odd students coming in for spring semester, but we had almost double turnout here tonight and are happy that we managed all resources like prizes and food well,” Singh said.
Raja Teja Yerneni , president of Yuva , the other organization involved in hosting the event, said that they collaborated with Maitri to make the event more interesting.
” Aarambh is an event which celebrates both Republic Day and a welcome party for spring 2012 freshers . We organize it on a large scale and expect a huge crowd. YUVA works more on the cultural events while Maitri is good at organizing the welcome party and other events. We thought it would be a good move to collaborate with Maitri to make an interesting event,” Yerneni said.
Sonika Rawal , an ex-committee member from Maitri said that she was happy with the new committee’s work on the event.
“They honestly did a better job than us,” Rawal said.
Dhriti Nayyar , senior in biological sciences, found the event fun and informative.
“I enjoyed the evening as it was informative and entertaining for both Indian and non-Indian community,” Nayyar said.
