Friday, August 7, 2009

Mera Bharat Mahan!!!

I was hanging out with a good African friend of mine last night and we were talking in general about similarities between our cultures. When I was in school at MSU, the African Students United(ASU)and the Indian Students Association(ISA) were two of the strongest student organizations(in terms of number of members) in the entire campus. However, towards the end of my school term, the ISA was not active at all due to a lot of issues,politics and all that blah!! On the contrary, the ASU was in full form and their "African Night" was a big hit! I was telling him about how a lot of us worked hard to make the ISA active and running and how we faced so many issues/politics from Board members. He just laughed and said "You guys may be active/inactive, but when it comes to cultural or sporting events, you guys always come on top!!" I was so surprised to hear him say that.. but when I thought about it, he was exactly right! The Banquet in 2008 was a big success even though the ISA was not even in place. The entire student group came out to cheer(even the docs were there!) and I realized that I even had fun working with people I loathed!! The strangest of relationships grew stronger while we worked on the dances!! I guess the point is that when it comes to cultural extravaganza, there's just no beating the Indians!! I just laughed and told my friend.. "You are soooo right" :)