Shakti’s Diwali Dinner: Celebrating the Festival of Lights
On Saturday, Nov. 5, Geneseo’s South Asian club, Shakti, presented their annual Diwali Dinner at the Interfaith Center. The dinner is hosted each year to celebrate the Festival of Lights, a religious and cultural festival celebrated widely throughout India.
This year, the Diwali Dinner featured an informative presentation about Diwali, as well as a dance performance from Shakti and delicious food catered by India House, an Indian restaurant in Rochester.
Members of Shakti provided educational slides that presented a more accessible understanding of the holiday, including clarification of cultural generalizations typically made about the holiday as well as clear and thorough context of the festival’s religious meanings.
The presentation led the way to one of the highlights of the night—a dance performance from Shakti. Members of the club exhibited all the passion and dedication to the delicate craft of dance so typically associated with the group’s performances. With driving music and beautiful dress, the dance was a crowd-pleaser from start to finish.
Senior philosophy major Saya Hrosar commented on the performance component of the Diwali dinner as one of her favorites of the night, remarking, “The Diwali event gave me a unique opportunity to experience the holiday and learn about the culture and history…The dances were very beautifully performed and allowed the audience to immerse themselves into the culture. It was a great event!”
Of course, the major competition the performance faced for participants’ favorite component of the Diwali Dinner was the food. From the savory crunch of samosas to the graceful sweetness of gulab jamun, dinner was undoubtedly adored by all. As though the taste weren’t enough, the food was served by members of the Shakti club, adding just another layer of the intimate community and celebration experienced by all at the event.
Without a doubt, this year’s Diwali Dinner accomplished and exceeded the goals established by Shakti, “to spread South Asian culture to the students at SUNY Geneseo, and make them more aware of the countries, culture, customs, problems, and people of South Asia.” Senior sociomedical sciences major Dev Patel, one of the co-presidents of Shakti, was able to provide some reflection on this goal and the impact that the Diwali Dinner has both for students who celebrate Diwali, and for those who may not know as much about the festival on Geneseo’s campus:
“A lot of our members live in New York City, where they don’t have transportation to get back, because it’s about six or seven hours away, or they live maybe closer to Rochester or Buffalo, but they don’t have a car, or a reliable way to get back and forth. Usually half the students…who celebrate Diwali have a way to connect back to their families, even though they’re maybe miles away.”
Patel continued, “On the campus itself, I always love seeing the culture events from all the different organizations…so, it’s always nice to see cultural events going on, and all the hard work that go [into them]. Sometimes, [because] we’re a smaller rural town, it’s hard to see all the culture going around. Both these smaller events, like Diwali, and each club’s bigger dinners that usually happen in the spring are usually a great way to spread cultural ideas.”
Be sure to keep an eye out for Shakti’s other major event, their dinner and show Sangamam, later this year. In the meantime, check out Shakti’s other events, performances, and general meetings on the Geneseo website, or on their Instagram, @shaktigeneseo.