The Guy Butler Theatre at 1820 Settlers Monument was decked out in vibrant Indian colours last Saturday as the Hindu Student Society (HSS) held their annual cultural show.
The Guy Butler Theatre at 1820 Settlers Monument was decked out in vibrant Indian colours last Saturday as the Hindu Student Society (HSS) held their annual cultural show.
This year’s theme IIFA extravaganza was inspired by the International Indian Film Awards, the Bollywood version of Hollywood’s Oscars.
The theme was chosen to celebrate the 10th anniversary of both IIFA and the HSS cultural show. The night started with an opening prayer sang by the vice president of the society, Viren Raja, and cultural officer, Santisha Chattergoon; followed by the national anthems of South Africa and India.
What followed were three hours of music, dance, jokes and awards. Dance groups from Grahamstown, Port Elizabeth, Uitenhage and East London, performed to medleys of Indian and contemporary music, while Miss SA India’s first princess, Ayushi Chhabra, wowed the crowd with a traditional dance from the Punjab region, the disputed border region in India and Pakistan.
Only there was no disputing her grace. Chhabra also presented a fashion show with Rhodes students modelling both modern and traditional Indian clothing.
The Rhodes Ballroom Society and Mapantsula represented the non-Hindu entertainment for the evening with the latter conquering all with a spectacular performance which lifted most spectators from their chairs and made them join in.
In between the acts, emcees Daschia Pather and Ashish Harry kept the audience entertained with jokes and prizes awarded in ‘categories’ such as the wanna-be Indian award. Several members of the audience took turns telling jokes, using a cheeky pickup line or sharing their best dance move, with the winner in each category receiving a prize.
The guest of honour was Ashwin Trikamjee, president of the South African Hindu Maha Sabha and a practising Hindu priest who said in a brief speech that culture is about people knowing where they are coming from in order to know where they are going.
He urged the HSS to keep organising the show every year "and it will become one of the most important showcases in South Africa.”
However, as Harshal Thaker, president of the HSS brought the curtain down, many memebers of the audience were relieved that it was over.
Indeed, the emcees had been having trouble keeping a full house near the end.Outside, the comments about the evening were mixed.
A good night but poorly organised, most people agreed. A major concern was the lower attendance figures compared to previous years.
“Maybe it is because of the fast [Ramadan],” Rhodes student and fashion show performer Monique Senekal said.
