Author Archives: Shalika Mugrai

Loud music, drumrolls, cheering, energizing dance performances, Indian food, and a plethora of colors greeted anyone stopping by Dag Hammarskjold Park, located just a few blocks from the United Nations on Saturday, May 3rd.

This was a daylong party of colors, bright and vibrant colors. The sounds of the festivities could be heard blocks away, as people from all different backgrounds and ethnicities gathered together to celebrate NYC Bhangra’s 5th annual Holi festival, the Indian festival of colors. There was scarcely a person leaving the area who was not covered in hues of pinks, reds, and greens from head to toe.

Watch this video of the day of the event!

Holi celebrates the coming of spring and originates from ancient myths of the triumph of good over evil. It’s celebrated mostly in India and Nepal, but has begun to spread across parts of Europe and North America, as more people have become aware of the holiday and are attracted to this celebration of spring, love, and happiness.

“I’m getting splashed with colors,” said Elena, a first time participant at this event. “I never expected this.” Fresh faces entering the park would be greeted with cries of “Holi Hai” and sprouts of color. In this mix of music and colors, anyone is fair game.

Several thousands of people attended the festival. Many of the festival-goers were not locals, but had heard of it from family, friends, and Facebook. “We are here today because we were invited to participate in this wonderful thing of color,” said Becky Heisman, from Portland, Oregon. “You meet so many beautiful, colorful people. The food is actually wonderful too.”

Prayatmi Shakya, a student at Baruch College, was informed of the event by her Irish-American friend. She braved the chaos created by a train derailment the previous day and opted to take a cab to reach the site. “Seeing people from different walks of life to celebrate our tradition was one of the most thrilling experiences,” said Shakya.  “As I was watching the concert, the host asked if anybody knows how to sing Honey Singh’s song and I raised my hand and said “I can’t sing but I can dance,” so I was called up on the stage with couple of other people and we danced.”

The host, Monty Kataria, entertained the crowd between dance performaces, with explanations of Holi, dance-a-longs, and occasional jokes. The organizer of the event, Megha Kalia, could be heard many times from stage, requesting that everyone respect the park, get off the grass, and volunteer. “If you would like to stay back and help us out to clean, we love you,” said Kalia.

Kalia is a modern dance student at the Martha Graham Dance School and runs her own dance school called NYC Bhangra Dance School and Company in New York City, as well as the Sitarrey Performing Arts Center in Jersey City. NYC Bhangra organizes the Holi Hai festival every year and trains dancers in the art of Bhangra, a Punjabi folk dance that is slowly making its way across the world. The powder-spattered revelers at the Holi festival jumped up and down as Kalia demonstrated the basics of Bhangra.

The preparations for the event start as early as six months in advance, and volunteers play a large part in this. “There are a group of volunteers who work on the website, on setting up the food booths, people who are behind the scenes but are very important,” said Dolly Kamalpreet, a choreographer and performer for NYC Bhangra. “The passion that keeps them going is to be part of something so big.”

NYC embraces diversity, and so does NYC Bhangra. “It’s not just Bhangra dance,” said Kamalpreet. “We have bollywood, salsa, and belly dancing. We invite a lot of different teams to perform with us.”

The NYC Bhangra team is comprised of 10 dancers from different backgrounds. They start rehearsing two months before the show, starting with weekly rehearsals and then meeting bi-weekly as the event gets closer. The team also performs for Vaisakhi at the Indian consulate, Diwali at South Street Seaport, and for the NYC Dance Parade. The team is made of many non-Indians, and some even new to Bhangra.

Fengfeng Ken He has been practicing Bhangra for less than a year. Recently, the dance form went from being an interest to a passion. “Now with NYC Bhangra I’m learning a lot,” said Ken. “I hope for the rest of my life I’ll be doing this thing called Bhangra, because its magic.”

Watch this video to see NYC Bhangra’s rehearsal for Holi Hai!

For this multimedia project, I want to cover the Holi Hai Fest occurring on Saturday, May 3rd, from 11am to 6pm at Dag Hammarksjold Plaza. I went to this event last year, and remember it being packed, with tons of different people, plenty of colors, and food. Its a big celebration of Holi, an Indian holiday that is now making becoming known across the world, as more and more people rejoice to celebrate the day of colors. Performances takes place throughout the day, ranging from youth groups to more professional organizations. There are even times throughout when the audience is taught to do bhangra, a traditional form of Indian dance. People follow along with their hands and feet to the beat and the person teaching. Also, this year they actually require you to get tickets for the event beforehand and are promoting it through social media sites, like Facebook. Although the tickets are free, they are selling out fast.

I think this event will be very visually appealing with great sounds as well, being great to get on video and in photos. I plan to interview many people the day of the event, ranging from the audience, to vendors, to performers. I am going to try getting in touch with the organizer, and have an interview before the event with them. I am also going to interview a group that performed last year and try to find performers before the actual event, preparing for it.

I was initially trying to focus on the Civilian Complaint Review Board and new developments in their Community Outreach program and with the addition of the Administrative Prosecution Unit. However, last minute, I ran into a lot of problems with access and being allowed to audio record.

I have changed gears, and now am focusing on the Relay for Life event happening at Baruch College, on Friday, March 21st. It has held annually, at the gym, and is an overnight fundraising event in which the Baruch Community gathers together to continue the fight for life. It includes guest speakers who are survivors of Cancer and continue to fight. Last year, when the event was held, there was a disturbance in the gym, and they had to cancel it sometime at night. As a result, many clubs on campus and the Relay for Life committee for Baruch continued their efforts in others ways, afterwards. Now with the event coming, the committee is preparing for the event, and people are getting ready to fight through the night.

I am going to interview a member of  the Relay for Life committee, who is spearheadint the efforts of the event. Most clubs at baruch form their own teams, and then fundraise for the event. Each club gets a table in the gym, in rotations. I am also interviewing the volunteer coordinator of a club who has made a team for the event. In addition, I am volunteering passionate students who have been affected by Cancer in come way and now are supporting the event. I am also trying to find a faculty member who goes out and supports the event every year.

For natural sounds, I am going to the event on Friday night, and will get the sounds of speeches, running and walking in the gym (as they make rounds), and the general sound of the busy and buslting place the gym will be.

For my photo essay assignment, I would like to cover the diversity of Flushing, Queens and capture it in the stories of individual people. Flushing is one of the most diverse cities in the nation, including people from Asian, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, European, and African American descent. Most people living in Flushing are from immigrant families, tightly holding on to their culture and staying within their communities. While Flushing is growing rapidly, the fact cannot be escaped that some areas resemble a third world country. The great influx of immigrants adds to its vibrant and lively culture. Many immigrants have made their mark, establishing themseleves and their own busineeses. There are over 200 places of worship located in the small city, meaning that they are in great proximity to each other, sometimes having mutliple different religious institutions within a block of the next. With the 7-train being peoples gateway into the city, Flushing is relatively close to, but nothing like the city. Its a backdrop to booming city, but sits well on its own, where foreigners have the opportunity to explore different countries without leaving home. In particular, Downtown Flushing is known as another Chinatown, expected to overtake that of Manhatthan in a few years.  The stories held by these immigrants, from their business, to restaurants, to food, and religious places of worship will  truly encompass the theme- Home away from home.

Alternately, I would like to pitch two other stories. I have had them one my mind for a while and could see it work. The first is to do a day in the life kind of story on a student in the dual language program in P.S. 163, located in Flushing, Queens. Many schools in New York City employ dual language programs in elementary schools, training students to become bilingual from a very early age. New York, home to millions of immigrants, is the hub of cultural diversity. Queens in particular is known the “most diverse borough in the city,” according to the NYC 2010 Results from the 2010 Census, with Flushing accounting for a large part of it. P.S.163 in Flushing Heights became the first school in Queens to start a dual language program in Chinese in 2006. Currently, there is only one other Chinese program in the borough. Of course, this would mean getting permission from the child, the child’s parent, the child’s teachers, and maybe even the principal. I would follow the child around and capture different moments in daily routine, and the dual language programs effect on the child.

The other would be of the closing of 5Pointz: The Institute of Higher Burnin’, otherwise known as 5Pointz Aerosol Art Center. It is the world’s premiere “graffiti mecca” where aersol artists from around the globe came to paint there art on the walls. 200 artists payed below average rent for studio space. It was first opened in 1993 and had since served an important place for art. Not only was it for artists, but also a famous tourist center, attracting many people and being a great view for millions of daily riders commuting on the 7-train. It was white-washed overnight, to make way for a $400 million residential project, leaving artists, tourists, local communties, and 7-train onlookers in shock. A rally occured last year to help save it. If I did go about this story, it would be easy to get photos of the place, but difficult to get photos of people as it is closed.

-Shalika Mugrai

In my endeavor to bring out my creative side and apply principles and skills learned from my international business minor and participation in the Global Student Certificate Program, I am hoping to make the most of being fortunate enough to be in one of the most dynamic cities of the world. I am interested in diversity, culture, and immigration. With these three topics, it would be easy to jump from one topic to the other as they all complement each other well.

New York City holds an immense amount of diversity and the extent of globalization is far-reaching. Although I am a native New Yorker and have grown up in a multicultural environment, I cannot help but notice immense differences in culture and environments in other states and countries. New York’s cultural richness and diverse population intrigues me, making it so unique in comparison to the rest of the world. I was in disbelief the first time I traveled outside of NYC, finding it difficult to accept that the rest of the world did not have such a diverse population and fast-paced, constantly changing lifestyle. When I traveled to India for the first time, I was in even more shock, never knowing that the world could even be so different. Now I realize how far NYC has come, carving out its own truly distinct environment from all the different people and cultures present.

While most immigrants retain their culture, or at least some of it, it undoubtedly blends in to the American culture, and here, to the “New York culture”, and becomes something unique. Many different communities have formed, in which niches of cultures can be found, with people of the same race or religion living close to each other. The elements of different communities blend, allowing for integration of customs, foods, ideologies, and traditions. After all, NYC has been and still is known the melting pot. Being so open to everyone, there couldn’t be an easier and better way to retain ones culture while being an American, than living in NYC.

Although this is a broad topic, I hope to narrow it down by project, and then tie everything together in the end in a way that is coherent and effective. I am looking forward to exploring the diversity of the city and capturing precious moments and clips that will come together to form a beautiful story.

–Shalika Mugrai