Geneseo’s South Asian club: Shakti
Photo courtesy of Shakti club
Here at Geneseo, the Shakti club represents the countries of South Asia, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Myanmar, and the Maldives. The club and its executive work constantly throughout the semester planning events, dinners, celebrations, and weekly meetings.
Senior sociomedical sciences major, Molia Ibrahim, is the president of Shakti and gave a behind-the-scenes explanation of just how much work goes into preparing events for the campus and community. Recently, on Nov. 4, the club hosted its Diwali Dinner at the Interfaith Center.
Tickets were available for sale at a table in the union before the event. Ibrahim explained that “...we spend a lot of time tabling as well. Reaching out to faculty to see if anyone wants to come and making sure we sell out like we usually do. [For Diwali Dinner] we did sell out, we got a great turnout this year.” Tabeling is a task that takes up endless hours of a club's time, it is not as simple as some may think.
Besides selling tickets to the dinner, the club had a list of other things that needed to be decided, bought, and done before the dinner could happen. Food was an important part of this event and proved to be a challenging task. Ibrahim said “...we had to get all of the food and since we don't do it through CAS we do it through a separate restaurant. [The caterer] is India House in Rochester… None of us have a car so we had to find people [that] could get it… we had someone be unable to pick it up last minute but we overcame the issues we faced and in the end, brought the event together.”
Ibrahim worked alongside the rest of the club’s e-board members including Student Association representative Riya Shiggon, Alliance for Community Enrichmentrepresentative Hannah Jaeger, public relations representative Tenzin Tselha, treasurer Avantika Jillella, secretary Isabell Mathew, presidential advisor Dev Patel, and vice president Nobah Islam.
The e-board members all worked tirelessly to plan what dances were going to be performed, and to what music. They then had to practice for all of these dances, which Ibrahim noted is very time-consuming. The menu was also discussed and planned before the dinner along with the decorations and general set-up.
In the spring semester, Shakti will be hosting their biggest dinner of the academic year, Sangamam. Ibrahim is already planning for this event, saying: “We have a skit, we have lots of dances, we have a big big buffet of food. It’s really fun. [Sangamam] is our most stressful event, though, because at least two months go into planning it. Practices are frequent, often, and long. But it is all worth it, and it always brings everyone closer together.”
The club hosts an e-board meeting every Friday, and also has general meetings every Wednesday at 6 p.m. All students are welcome at general meetings, and any questions can be directed to their email, which is shatki@geneseo.edu.
The club also has smaller events throughout the semester, such as their Relax with Shakti event. On December 6, Shakti hosted a relaxing event with henna, chai, and samosas. If you missed this, be sure to follow their Instagram @shaktigeneseo to see all upcoming events.