For those of you who don’t know what Bhangra is, Bhangra is a form of Hindi music and folk dance. It is an art form that energizes a formidable following – mostly consisting of those with Indian ancestry. There seems to be a traditional dance aspect to it, often in boy-girl pairs. However, there are also aspects that appear like martial arts and instruments. There are several dimensions and I guess the only way to really understand it is to see it. I myself had no idea what Bhangra was until my Indian friend Chirag (Indian in family background, American in nationality) told me about it and invited me to the Boston Bhangra show, which took place yesterday from about 7:00 to about 10:30.
I guess you could say that I had somewhat of an Indian Saturday since I went to an Indian restaurant for brunch in the early afternoon. The place was the Bombay Café on Mass Ave here in Boston. A friend recommended it to me. It’s got a good lunch deal – I got a whole all-you-can-eat weekend buffet for only $6.95 (not including tax.) As far as Indian food goes, I’m a fan of a good old chicken tika masala. But everything looked good so I had a little bit of everything on my plate. That’s something I love about buffets – they cater to indecisiveness ever-so nicely.
So, now, how I ended up going to the Boston Bhangra show. Like I said before, my buddy Chirag, who goes every year, mentioned it to me and I, despite having not a clue in the world what Bhangra was, graciously agreed to accompany him along with some other mutual friends of ours. After all, I love a good cultural fling – I do not immerse myself in multiculturalism on a daily basis, but I do genuinely enjoy it as a part of my whole worldly experience. I bought my ticket – or, more accurately, Chirag bought my ticket and I reimbursed him, for $20. It’s a pretty steep price but the show goes on for a while and I don’t do this kind of thing very often, so it seemed worth it.
So now, on to the show experience – it was nothing at all like I expected it to be. The last time that I had gone to a culture show, an Asian one consisting of artistic skits from all across the Far East, the atmosphere was a much more mellow. It was a calm, sophisticated display of talent. That was what I expected to see here. This seemed more like an Indian rock concert. There were what looked like well over a thousand in attendance – mostly of Indian ancestry – of all ages, many of whom were young. There were teenage girls screaming really loudly, huge crowds of people chanting the names of those on stage and an emcee energetically pumping up the audience like a preacher in a new age evangelical church. The theme of the event was traditional Indian style – no question about it. But it had a modern aura to it that was inspiring, to say the least. There were videos on a projector screen introducing the different teams and playing promos before each group performed. One consisted of scenes from The Lion King and The Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride with sound clips from 300. There were even commercialsin between the separate acts.
Reflecting on this now, I must give props to all the performers and their easily noticed hard work in preparing for this pivotal event in their lives. The synchronicity and elegance of their performance reveals the passion within. Indeed, when someone is passionate and works hard at something I tend to admire them heartily for it. The show was, in fact, a competition. That was another aspect which came as a surprise to me. There were several teams present there, a few from nearby locations and others from faraway areas like Vancouver and Washington, DC. Northeastern, BU and MIT all had teams hailing from their respective schools. There were other teams, too. One called Jawani Bhangra consisted entirely of women. These young amazons of the art of Bhangra dazzled the eyes of many of the men sitting in the audience. When it came time to announce the winner, all the teams gathered on stage and prominent Indian celebrities – none of whom I recognized – opened an envelope and presented a trophy. It seemed like the NBA Finals of Bhangra. The team that won was called Empire Bhangra – they did indeed perform well, though it was not the team that those among me were rooting for.
Would I go again? Quite possibly. If I feel like it. I did like several aspects of the experience. If I do go I would plan on refraining from buying refreshments there. This time I got a small Indian dish (for the second time in one day) in a box and an obscenely overpriced beer. That was not my favorite part. But, like I said, my friend goes every year, so I may go depending on my mood this time one year from now.
That is all I have to say about the subject right now. I would recommend checking out these youtube videos if the subject of my post intrigues you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS5SZ-xDnjk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWCKPeu4ugU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBia1KqFCOo
