Edited by: Veronika Potylitsina
On September 22nd, the Indian Student’s Society held their Back to School Mixer. The Facebook event page promised food, board games, socializing and Bollywood, and as a commuting student who has time for only one of these (obviously food), I was in!
The event page stated that the event would start at 4:30, but the crowd started building up around 5:30. There were a bunch of activities to do: Bollywood music was blasting throughout the Sanford Fleming Pit, board games were set up at tables, and of course, the food!
There were two options for food: paapdi chaat was given for free, or you could get a plate of vada pav, samosa, and pakora for $5. The U of T Leukemia and Lymphoma Society were also present at the event, selling cupcakes for $2. So there were quite a few options, all of which I definitely indulged in! There is nothing quite like digging into a plate of paapdi chaat while you lose miserably in multiple rounds of “Guess Who? : Disney Edition” (I swear I know my Disney princesses).
Speaking of which, games were a significant part of the night! The first half of the event mostly involved people eating, socializing, and a huge amount of people yelling at the tops of their voices playing Jenga, Guess Who?, Scrabble, Twister, etc. My friends and I played multiple games, yelling as our Jenga tower fell over and cringing in defeat as we failed to figure out Doc from Snow White using some very easy clues.
Around 6:30, some dancers held a Bollywood dance workshop. I lingered back, but it was great to see lots of people come out and try something new, giggling as they tried to follow the dancers’ clearly expert level Bollywood moves (such goals, when will my clumsy self ever?). The workshop, while not involving too much of the crowd, did inspire people to come out and start dancing when they played the music again, leading to the second part: dancing.
And boy did we dance! Being an introvert, it took me a while to step in, but it was definitely hard to resist! Old and new Bollywood songs blasted throughout Sandford Fleming, and people were singing along at the tops of their voices while dancing with vigour. And it definitely wasn’t just Indians in the crowd! There were quite a few non-Indian students, many of whom were curious to see what was going on, and ended up staying well into the night! I even managed to meet our Co-Editors-in-Chief there, Jina Aryaan and Veronika Potylitsina (who managed to know lyrics to a ton of the songs being played, something I fervently wish I could do).
We danced well into the night, and I only left a little before the event ended (which was supposed to be 11:30, according to the event page). As a commuter, I don’t have many opportunities to go to events held on campus like this one, but this event was reasonably timed and easy to access for both commuters and residence students. I also got the opportunity to connect with a part of my culture that I didn’t have the time to connect with during the school year. It was definitely an event I wouldn’t forget easily, and I’m excited to see what else the ISS has in store for the rest of the year!
Image 3 credited to Shruthi Vaidyanathan. All other images credited to Veronika Potylitsina