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Indians feast to celebrate Diwali

HOUGHTON – Michigan Tech’s Indian students and their guests held their own version of a Thanksgiving feast last week as part of their celebration of Diwali, the Indian Festival of Lights. Diwali celebrates the victory of good over evil, in particular the Hindu legend of Lord Rama’s return from exile and defeat of the demon Ravana.

In India, students explained, Diwali is celebrated with prayer, gifts, family feasts and fireworks. At Tech, the big events are an elaborate stage show featuring Bollywood and classical music and dance, and a huge feast of delicacies from the four corners of India.

In an article last week, some Indians claimed the stage show was the highlight of the celebration. Others, however, said the dinner is the most important part of the evening.

“Always the food,” said Moiz Mohammed, a graduate electrical engineering student who said the entire Diwali meal was good, but he particularly recommended the chetinad chicken curry.

In India, some communities may host dance and musical performances at Diwali, Mohammed said, but those can happen any time of year.

“It’s mostly about the firecrackers and the food,” he said.

Tech’s Indian Student Association hasn’t yet incorporated fireworks into their celebration, he said. But they’ve got the food part down.

Graduate mechanical engineering student Nithin Rao was too humble to accept the title of chef, but admitted he’d coordinated this year’s feast, the largest in Tech Diwali history. He’d planned for 600 guests, he said, and tickets for the meal had sold out.

For the first time ever, the Indian Student Association set up banquets on two floors of Tech’s Memorial Union to accommodate everyone, he said, one in the third-floor ballroom, the other in the first-floor commons.

Rao said preparations began weeks ago, when his team began planning a menu that would include food from each of India’s four major regions.

“People look forward to having a lot of spices and flavors from different regions,” he said.

Along with the curry, Rao said, north Indian puri flat-bread, south Indian Rasam soup – which uses tamarind juice as a base – and the baby corn fry were all keys to the feast.

“I think the puri with the dum aloo (a potato dish) would be my favorite,” he said.

Rao said his 18-person kitchen crew began chopping fresh vegetables three days before the feast to make sure things were ready, and they had one major advantage over the entertainers – they could jam out while they were cooking, but dancers couldn’t eat on stage, or even overeat before performing.

The dancers, musicians and actors have been looking good in practice, Rao said, but even the show’s success was at least partly dependent on how satisfied people’s stomachs were when they walked into the theater.

“Both the show and the food are important,” he said, “but if they food is good, people are happy, and that’s the deciding factor.”

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