A Bollywood Saturday in Africa

My friends and I practiced a silly South Asian dance for hours today. There is an Indian film festival in Oberlin starting from tomorrow and we are supposed to dance before the first movie. It’s 12 of us. 6 girls and 6 guys. It’s pretty chaotic. I have a feeling we are going to totally mess it up tomorrow night! But who cares. The purpose is to have fun and it’s definitely ridiculous and fun.
First the guys are on stage and they are pretending to smoke weed. The music starts slow. Then they do some strange moves and stuff that I don’t know how to describe. Then the girls walk from the sides to the stage. 3 on the right and 3 on the left. Then we do stuff that I don’t know how to describe again. Then guys come to us and try to show us that they love us. But we reject them and the process of rejection goes on for a long time. Then they collapse and all fall down on their knees. The girls gather around a circle and make fun of the guys’ needy faces. Then, we feel bad for them and go grab our man from his collar and we all hold hand in a snake-like line and dance. It’s pretty silly. My professors who are going to be there tomorrow night are going to think that poor Azadeh has gone crazy! Oh well! I am only trying to be a bollywood star, that’s all! The age of intellectualism is over. It’s time for some shallow dance.
I didn’t go partying again tonight. I didn’t feel like it. I don’t know though, I might end up going out tonight. I feel like dancing. But the problem is that I don’t want to dance to weird white music. I want to ‘gher’…undoubtedly those of you who are Iranian know precisely what I am talking about!
Tonight we had an African banquet here in Oberlin. It was very crowded and the food was definitely not enough. So we ended up coming home and eating cookies. Chocolate chips…hmmmm. Yummy. Also my Iranian-American friend’s father had come to the banquet tonight. He is a professor in a college in Ohio. This weekend is parents’ weekend in Oberlin. So you see parents following their college kids everywhere. It’s actually kind of annoying. I feel like everyone puts on a show for them. But anyways, my friend’s dad was here, too. And he came to dinner to see me while his son was practicing for a concert that he was going to have tonight. But the fun part was that since his son wasn’t present at the banquet I got to introduce him to my friends. He sat next to me the entire time and interacted with my friends. It felt really good. I don’t know it was as if my dad had come all the way from Iran to Oberlin College to visit me. I am sure he would have if he could. Regardless the fact that Uncle Akbar was there with me and my friends made me very happy!