INDIA NIGHT SHOW "EK RAAT, EK SAATH"

By Rohit (April 4, 2004)

India night, just hearing the name and reading all the publicity surrounding this cultural show made it sound very important. Indeed the Indian Students' Association at University of Illinois had put together a well-organized and well-planned show for an audience of 3000+. I decided to go at the last minute only because Adnaan had an extra ticket. In the end, the Indian fellowship of 4: Dev, Anubhav, Adnaan, and myself left in Dev's car for a very boring two and a half hour ride to the university campus. The two most eventful things about the drive was Dev 'feeling' that something was wrong with his rear left tire, and us having to stop in the middle of the damn highway to see if anything was wrong (and Dev had no instruments in his car, so really, unless we saw the tire look like a flat tortilla, we wouldn't know). The other thing was Dev was speeding at 90mph on a 70mph road a cop passed him going at 100mph.

We reached Urbana and went to Anshul's apartment to pick up the two tickets reserved for Anubhav and Dev. Then, off we went to Rashaad's place for Adnaan's and my tickets. The show started only 10 minutes late and lasted over 3 hours. All of the dances were amazing. I was simply shocked. Just the costumes, the fast heart-beating music, and the moves came together superbly. The only disappointing part of the show, I thought, was the videos. I'm sure it was funny for the people that viewed the 10 minute long videos about absolutely nothing. The other videos were ok, but this 10 minute period of time where a group of fobbish Indians play basketball with a bunch of better skilled people (sounds funny) was just nightmarish. I wanted to crack my skull open. The only funny thing was, there were these two elderly women constantly chit-chatting right behind me, and some of the comments they made were hilarious. One was, "Aare, ye kya bakwas hai?" Meaning, "What is this nonsense," but in a funnier way. Well anyway, the show was very successful and I couldn't help but compare our ISA night show at NNHS to this show. A nervous feeling crept up my back.

It was almost 12AM when we came back to Anshul's house. Knowing Anshul, he would never let us drive back at this odd hour of the night and even though we tried to get him to let us go it came down to one thing (one very pathetic thing). We heard that there was a party after the show with all the participants attending. I have to confess, I had never seen so many hot Indian girls congregated in one place in my life. NNHS seemed like a pathetic place to live after this little episode. Well anyway, so enticed by an offer to go check out this party (well on the promise that we wouldn't drink, not that we would have anyway) we abandoned the idea of going home. So, at 2 in the morning, we went to Steak n' Shake. What a stupid idea! I mean, it was good for the people who wanted to eat, but I hated that place. I have started hating unhealthy food, with the infrequent exception of Mcdonalds, Burger King, Subway, and definitely Taco Bell. Well, after some time wasting there, we learned that this party was a 'sausage-fest', another useless college vocabulary term imprinted in my head. I trust everyone knows what that means, or can effectively guess from the key word SAUSAGE. Well anyway, we spent the night at Anshul's apartment adjusting the couches to make room for three extra guys. The next morning, we got back in Dev's car and again endured a long and boring drive home: one of the most uneventful drives ever!

*Pictures coming soon...once I find the damn things.