Bombay in the Bay 2011 dances the night away

This year, the Indian Culture Awareness Club celebrated the 10th anniversary of Bombay in the Bay, a popular event that immerses its audience into a night filled with Indian dancing, music and food.

Several changes were applied to this year’s event. Straying from the typical romantic plot line, the script was based on a Bollywood-esque dance competition.

“We wanted to do something more unique for the script this year, so we thought we’d add the idea of competitions into the script to change it up a little bit,” Indian Club co-president Parth Dholakia said. “Of course, since its a Bollywood show, there had to be a little bit of romance involved, and humor is a must.”

Also, instead of having each grade perform its own dance, the club officers decided to switch it back to the way it was traditionally, which involved combined grade dances.

“We wanted to promote unity between the grade levels because it’s about all of us as a club, not each of us divided into different grade levels.” Dholakia said.

However, controversy among the participants rose from this switch.

“There was a lot of initial resistance among participants but in the end everything was squared away and we were able to have a successful show,” co-president Keerti Shukla said.

This year, the club hosted two shows—one in the afternoon and one in the evening. The evening show, which included dinner, sold out with almost 600 people attending, and the afternoon show hosted around 250 people. Although some mistakes were made in the afternoon show, it served as a run-through for the evening show.

“[The afternoon show] was a blessing in disguise,” said Dholakia. “It helped us prepare even more for the night show, which went extremely smoothly.”

Teachers were also welcome to put on a performance of their own to add to the variety of dances.

“We decided to add it in because we thought it would be a nice touch to the show,” Shukla said.

During the evening show, senior performers received a surprise when they saw their own mothers performing a dance and song, dedicated to them.

“I was totally shocked by this surprise,” Shukla said. “I had been a little suspicious about my mom going out at night a lot (for practices which I was unaware of at the time). But I always thought it was for grad night or something else. I never thought it would be something to do with Bombay in the Bay.”

The club was able to raise an impressive $15,000 and will donate $10,000 to the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation. This is twice the amount that was raised last year.

“The main motive behind [the show] was to raise money for our chosen causes in honor of our most loved, Susie Nagpal,” said dance choreographer Rachel Prabhu. “We wanted to make her proud, especially our senior year.”

According to Prabhu, approximately 21 hours a week were dedicated to the production for each club officer.

“I know this sounds like an exaggeration, but our whole lives were dedicated to Bombay in the Bay,” said Prabhu. “We are all incredibly passionate about [the club] and [this event].”

Planning for Bombay in the Bay started right after the officers were chosen.

“We started evaluating shows since our freshman year since we had all been in them and made pros and cons as to how they were run,” secretary Kaitna Shankar said. “We wanted to learn and improve on each one of them.”

Additional planning was also made for the popular All Girls Dance (AGD) and All Males Dance (AMD), which consists of the seniors in their respective groups. The two groups have historically held a rivalry throughout practices and the shows themselves, but the dancers kept the competition to a minimum this year, focusing instead on creating two spectacular performances.

“Last year, the AGD and AMD competition had reached a peak where it just wasn’t friendly anymore,” Shankar said. “I know friendships were ended because the seniors got so into the competition. We wanted to make sure that didn’t happen to us, so we got rid of it.”

Both the AGD and AMD dances performed with lights, an exciting addition to an already colorful performance. While AGD used handheld lights to start off their dance, the AMD switched back and forth on dancing under a black light.

“I came up with the idea my sophomore year, from the black light rally,” Dholakia said. “I know that Bombay in the Bay has never had a dance guided by lighting, so I thought it would be really unique to pull off on stage.”

After a year of planning and organizing, countless rehearsals, and several setbacks, the officers are left with bittersweet feelings and countless memories of their last year together in Bombay in the Bay.

“I’m having withdrawal symptoms,” Prabhu said. “I think we all are. I wish I could re-live it over and over and over again. I do not regret one minute of all of these days spent working on the dances and all other components of the shows. I think the amount of passion we all have for the show is still running through each of us.”