Photo: Tom Kates
Drishti Chhabria ’17 (left) and Siddhi Mehta ’17
For one night each fall and spring, the Sorenson Center for the Arts fills with song and dance, color and splendor. Aman, the long-standing South Asian student organization, puts on a show to celebrate the cultures of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. The evening features a fashion show, a live band, and a play in the style of a Bollywood movie. A dinner for cast, crew, and audience members concludes the night.
“You get to experience the foods, the music, the clothes, everything,” says Drishti Chhabria ’17, president of Aman, which boasts some 150 members, making it one of the largest student organizations on campus. “The shows are fabulous,” says Cheryl Kirschner, senior lecturer in law, who has been attending Aman’s performances for years, even before she took over as the group’s faculty advisor in 2006. “I am proud to say that students conceptualize, plan, design, choreograph, and rehearse the entire show themselves.”
That takes work. In the week before the show, Sorenson becomes abuzz with activity. Students are working on props, rehearsing dances, and hashing out the million little details that go into a smooth performance. Practices stretch till the early morning. “It takes a lot of time,” says Siddhi Mehta ’17, Aman’s vice president. “We’re living in Sorenson.”
Beyond its shows, Aman is involved in a number of other campus activities. Members help put on the Babson India Symposium, a business and entrepreneurship conference; hold a dinner and prayer service for Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights; and organize a celebration for Holi, a Hindu welcoming of spring. Through its events, Aman hopes to share its members’ cultures with the larger Babson community. “We want people to become more familiar with who we are,” Chhabria says. “It gives me ample happiness to bring a part of my culture to the stage with Aman.”—John Crawford