Last weekend found me in Durham, N.C., with two women I can only describe as my sistas from other mistas.
Sowmya, Akshita and I are the youngest characters in a multigenerational family friendship. My mom went to college with Sowmya’s mom, and she met Akshita’s parents at Sowmya’s mom’s wedding. While I’m not related to either family by blood, Sowmya and Akshita are actually connected by marriage and through a distant relative. Talk to another Indian for long enough and you’re bound to find that you have some person in common. Call it the Six Degrees of Iyer.
When we get together, we love to tell people the story of how we all hated each other when we first met. Akshita and I were reluctant to spend time together as teens because she is two years younger than I, and during our childhood I perceived her as immature when we couldn’t agree on what games to play. Sowmya and I were initially unsure of how to act when Akshita unexpectedly invited us both to her high school graduation. We kept each other at arm’s length until, as Akshita puts it, she left us alone for a couple hours and when she came back we were best friends.
That was two and a half years ago. In that time, the three of us have become so close that “friends” doesn’t seem to adequately describe the depth of our bond. We can go without being together for six months, even a year, and then pick up again as if nothing has changed. It’s like we were plucked from the same limb of the tree that our mothers hung from. We understand each other because we understand our parents, because we were raised in the same ways.
While we try to meet up as frequently as possible, our geographical separation makes doing so awfully difficult. But Akshita’s big occasions come often enough. The most recent one was her performance at Awaaz, the cultural show sponsored by Duke University’s South Asian association on Friday, Nov. 9, and Saturday, Nov. 10.
That’s Akshita front and center! Duke Diya has presented this show every November for more than 25 years, and it’s the university’s largest student-run production. The event includes live song and dance performances with skits and video clips mixed in between.
About 15 groups presented, ranging from traditional Indian bhangra to Irish dance, Justin Bieber a cappella to Bollywood-style lip-synching. Myriad cultures and styles were represented with an subcontinental sub-current running throughout.
The enthusiasm amongst the audience in Page Auditorium was infectious. Between acts, students sitting on the balcony would should out, “A what?” to which another cluster would holler back “Awaaz!” The emcees onstage couldn’t help but laugh along with this rallying cry.
Awaaz was so impressive for the scope of the whole performance. What began as a South Asian celebration grew into an opportunity to entertain and engage campus by showcasing Duke’s diverse student body. And they are so proud of it.
This kind of collaboration across multicultural campus organizations is really refreshing to see. From my own college experience, I know it can sometimes be difficult to draw in a large audience for one specific event or performance. But Awaaz brought a prevailing sense of inclusion, as visible in the groups smiling under the stage lights as it was in the crowd who gathered to watch them.
Score one for pluralism.
