When students today think of Rangila, bright costumes, twinkling lights, and rowdy cheers from the audience of Gaston Hall may come to mind. However, 30 years ago, for the show’s co-founder Ushma Pandya (CAS ’97), videotaping the performance on VHS tapes and handwriting “Rangila I” marked the beginning of what would become one of Georgetown’s most significant traditions.
Hosted by the South Asian Society (SAS), Rangila is a philanthropic South Asian dance showcase fully run by students. The event takes place every November in Gaston Hall alongside a series of charity events throughout the semester. For then-sophomore Pandya and her co-founder, then-freshman Mital Shah (SFS ’98), organizing Rangila was a completely unfamiliar undertaking.
“We didn’t know what we were doing,” Pandya said. “It was bootstrapped.”
Pandya and Shah paid out of pocket for much of the first Rangila’s production costs. The duo received some funding from the Student Activities Commission, but rented curtains and purchased much of their own production equipment.
Since then, Rangila has become a beloved Georgetown tradition and the largest charity dance performance in the country. However, when the event started, South Asian culture was rarely celebrated on campus, according to Pandya.
Nevertheless, the South Asian community at Georgetown has grown—both in size and campus impact—over the past 30 years.
“There were 10 of us total organizing Rangila,” Pandya said. “It really did overtake my life, but it was important in helping establish a stronger South Asian presence.”
Shah and Pandya were active members of the South Asian Student Association (SASA, now SAS), and trained in classical Indian dance styles like Kathak, Odissi, and Bharatanatyam. The idea for Rangila stemmed from wanting to spread their love of South Asian dance with the rest of Georgetown’s student body—an effort that has been continually defined by colorful and vibrant cultural expressions over the past three decades.
“‘Rang’ means color,” Pandya said. “We were thinking about bursts of color with this dance showcase.”
Today, Rangila showcases a diverse range of South Asian dance styles hailing from India to Pakistan to Nepal. Some performances fuse South Asian dance styles with elements from other cultures, for example, the Afro-fusion and Suave Taal dances draw inspiration from the African diaspora and Latin America, respectively. The show also includes a musical section performed by Studio Rangila, an ensemble that primarily features South Asian instruments and vocals. The show ends with a dynamic Bhangra—a form of South Asian dance—finale.
Since its inception, a spirit of inclusivity has been integral to Rangila: the show is open to student performers of any skill level or ethnicity.
“We tried to appeal to non-South Asians,” Pandya said. “If you were a warm body, you were in the dance.”
Still, students, especially South Asian students, were initially hesitant to perform in front of their peers. According to Pandya, many students found it daunting to display their heritage so publicly at a predominantly white institution (PWI).
“Mital and I had to beg and plead with people to do our dance in Red Square,” Pandya said in regard to fundraising for the first production.
Sonali Mody (SFS ’95), who graduated soon after the first Rangila, said that her experience at Georgetown as a South Asian student wasn’t nearly as glamorous and vivid as what Rangila has created. In fact, before Rangila, there was almost no sense of community for South Asian students, according to Mody.
“We did have a South Asian society, but it was all just starting to come together,” Mody said.
To build a community, the early SASA formed relationships with other South Asian student groups across the East Coast. However, most activities were limited to pre-professional events with few outlets for creativity, according to Mody.
In 1996, a year after Mody graduated, Senthil Sankaran (CAS ’96) wrote letters to incoming Georgetown students promoting Rangila. Several of Rangila’s early organizers felt that this kind of outreach created a buzz for prospective South Asian students interested in attending Georgetown, especially because of the tight-knit South Asian community that Rangila fostered.
“The next year we saw more Indians on campus,” Pandya said. “Maybe the show helped!”
Today, the South Asian community on the Hilltop is vibrant and diverse, pieced together through organizations such as Rangila, SAS, the Asian American Student Association, and religious organizations like the Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, Sikh, and Muslim Student Associations. And, in 2022, Georgetown became one of only a few universities in the country to have a South Asian Studies certificate program after years of passionate advocacy by South Asian students.
“In the time since I left Georgetown, South Asians have made a name for themselves,” Mody said in regard to the multicultural life on campus.
Although the first year of Rangila was a bare-bones production, it was a success.
“It was a hit! Isn’t that crazy?” Pandya said, describing how audience members filled Gaston Hall that night in 1994.
After such a successful first run, popular demand brought Rangila back again for a second year. In the decades since, the show has become a defining aspect of the Georgetown experience and reshaped the South Asian community on campus.
Pandya and Shah’s vision for a South Asian dance showcase propelled Rangila to become a hallmark of performing arts and culture on campus, drawing hundreds of students and selling out Gaston Hall within minutes each year.
“Things like Rangila make a difference because it is hard to ignore,” Mody said.
With ICC classrooms filled with sweaty dancers practicing most days past 9 p.m. and the constant buzz of campus-wide philanthropy events, the energy of Rangila certainly is difficult to ignore—even more so this year as Rangila celebrates this historic anniversary.
This year, Alison Karki (CAS ’25), Rushil Vashee (SFS ’25), and Rania Khan (SFS ’26) are Rangila’s student coordinators. They’ve embraced the responsibility of making Rangila 30 the most spectacular celebration yet. This year’s performances include the revival of the Afro-fusion dance after ten years and, for the first time ever, the addition of a third show: a Saturday matinee.
“As corny as it sounds, there are 30 years of visionaries,” Vashee said. “We really are dancing under the 30 years of stars before us.”
The notion of 30 years of heritage is what led Karki, Vashee, and Khan to coin the theme of “Under the Stars” for Rangila 30. The show hopes to use the imagery of stars to pay tribute to the performers who came before them.
Each of the student coordinators, like their predecessors, entered Georgetown with a similar sense of uncertainty in how to navigate their South Asian identities on campus. For them, finding Rangila was more than just finding an extracurricular to fill their time—it was about finding a place to celebrate their cultural experiences within a larger community that understood them.
“Someone mentioned it to me when I was feeling super homesick,” Khan, who is originally from Lahore, Pakistan, said. “It made me feel that sense of home at Georgetown.”
Vashee was also introduced to Rangila through another Hoya, though not a fellow student.
“I had office hours with President DeGioia my freshman year. He explained to me what Rangila is and how I should get involved,” Vashee said.
Unlike Vashee and Khan, Karki knew about Rangila before she even arrived at Georgetown.
“I was talking to my family friend who is Nepali, and she’s the one who kind of mentioned Rangila in passing,” Karki said.
Karki was so excited about Rangila that she mentioned the dance showcase during her application interview as a major pull factor to attend Georgetown. Since arriving, Karki has performed in Rangila every year, and she co-choreographed Rangila’s first-ever Nepali dance, Lekali Nepali, in 2022 and 2023.
“I ended up creating Lekali Nepali with that family friend,” Karki said. “It was so full circle and incredible and amazing!”
Karki, Vashee, and Khan all said that Rangila’s philanthropic goals are part of what inspires them about the showcase.
Although nobody interviewed remembers when or why Rangila first started partnering with charities, philanthropy is now an integral part of the annual showcase. This year, Rangila’s philanthropic partner is the Little Sisters Fund (LSF), an organization based in Nepal that empowers young girls using educational programs and community resources and combats human trafficking, gender-based violence, and child labor.
“LSF has just done a phenomenal job with transparency. We’ve seen how each dollar has gone towards a specific scholarship or goes towards making a menstrual health kit,” Karki said.
In the past, Rangila’s philanthropy has contributed to a variety of organizations, fundraising tens of thousands of dollars for Action Against Hunger in 2023 and Distressed Children and Infants in 2022.
Vashee, Khan, and Karki are continuing the legacy of Rangila, honoring the visions of Pandya and Shah and ensuring that South Asian students today have a stronger sense of cultural community than students like Mody did three decades ago.
“With the 30-year history just comes so much growth,” Khan said. “It’s just grown to become so much more of an inclusive space.”
Rangila has certainly evolved from its first “bootstrapped” performance to the sensational showcase it is today, both on campus and nationwide. Rangila 30’s coordinators hope that the group will only continue to grow, incorporating more shows, more South Asian diasporic cultures, and even greater philanthropic efforts.
We, as South Asian students and participants of Rangila over the past two years, have personally witnessed the impact Rangila has had. It has strengthened our bonds with the South Asian community at Georgetown and connected us with a deep-rooted heritage through dance and music. Rangila is a place for communities to merge together in a colorful, energetic environment while making tangible differences in charity causes across South Asia.
“It’s the biggest event on campus, and it’s run by South Asians at a PWI,” Khan said. “Rangila feels magical.”
This year’s glimmering production of Rangila 30: Under the Stars will be held in Gaston Hall on Nov. 22 and 23. You can learn more about Rangila’s history here.
Editor’s Note: Alison Karki is the Editor for Sexual Violence Advocacy, Prevention, and Coverage for the Voice and Rania Khan served as a Copy Assistant in spring 2024.
This article has been corrected to clarify the funding sources behind the first Rangila.
News Commentary
Rangila 30 builds on three decades of South Asian community, growth, and vision
By Aashna Nadarajah and Ayushi Das
November 22, 2024
When students today think of Rangila, bright costumes, twinkling lights, and rowdy cheers from the audience of Gaston Hall may come to mind. However, 30 years ago, for the show’s co-founder Ushma Pandya (CAS ’97), videotaping the performance on VHS tapes and handwriting “Rangila I” marked the beginning of what would become one of Georgetown’s most significant traditions.
Hosted by the South Asian Society (SAS), Rangila is a philanthropic South Asian dance showcase fully run by students. The event takes place every November in Gaston Hall alongside a series of charity events throughout the semester. For then-sophomore Pandya and her co-founder, then-freshman Mital Shah (SFS ’98), organizing Rangila was a completely unfamiliar undertaking.
“We didn’t know what we were doing,” Pandya said. “It was bootstrapped.”
Pandya and Shah paid out of pocket for much of the first Rangila’s production costs. The duo received some funding from the Student Activities Commission, but rented curtains and purchased much of their own production equipment.
Since then, Rangila has become a beloved Georgetown tradition and the largest charity dance performance in the country. However, when the event started, South Asian culture was rarely celebrated on campus, according to Pandya.
Nevertheless, the South Asian community at Georgetown has grown—both in size and campus impact—over the past 30 years.
“There were 10 of us total organizing Rangila,” Pandya said. “It really did overtake my life, but it was important in helping establish a stronger South Asian presence.”
Shah and Pandya were active members of the South Asian Student Association (SASA, now SAS), and trained in classical Indian dance styles like Kathak, Odissi, and Bharatanatyam. The idea for Rangila stemmed from wanting to spread their love of South Asian dance with the rest of Georgetown’s student body—an effort that has been continually defined by colorful and vibrant cultural expressions over the past three decades.
“‘Rang’ means color,” Pandya said. “We were thinking about bursts of color with this dance showcase.”
Today, Rangila showcases a diverse range of South Asian dance styles hailing from India to Pakistan to Nepal. Some performances fuse South Asian dance styles with elements from other cultures, for example, the Afro-fusion and Suave Taal dances draw inspiration from the African diaspora and Latin America, respectively. The show also includes a musical section performed by Studio Rangila, an ensemble that primarily features South Asian instruments and vocals. The show ends with a dynamic Bhangra—a form of South Asian dance—finale.
Since its inception, a spirit of inclusivity has been integral to Rangila: the show is open to student performers of any skill level or ethnicity.
“We tried to appeal to non-South Asians,” Pandya said. “If you were a warm body, you were in the dance.”
Still, students, especially South Asian students, were initially hesitant to perform in front of their peers. According to Pandya, many students found it daunting to display their heritage so publicly at a predominantly white institution (PWI).
“Mital and I had to beg and plead with people to do our dance in Red Square,” Pandya said in regard to fundraising for the first production.
Sonali Mody (SFS ’95), who graduated soon after the first Rangila, said that her experience at Georgetown as a South Asian student wasn’t nearly as glamorous and vivid as what Rangila has created. In fact, before Rangila, there was almost no sense of community for South Asian students, according to Mody.
“We did have a South Asian society, but it was all just starting to come together,” Mody said.
To build a community, the early SASA formed relationships with other South Asian student groups across the East Coast. However, most activities were limited to pre-professional events with few outlets for creativity, according to Mody.
In 1996, a year after Mody graduated, Senthil Sankaran (CAS ’96) wrote letters to incoming Georgetown students promoting Rangila. Several of Rangila’s early organizers felt that this kind of outreach created a buzz for prospective South Asian students interested in attending Georgetown, especially because of the tight-knit South Asian community that Rangila fostered.
“The next year we saw more Indians on campus,” Pandya said. “Maybe the show helped!”
Today, the South Asian community on the Hilltop is vibrant and diverse, pieced together through organizations such as Rangila, SAS, the Asian American Student Association, and religious organizations like the Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, Sikh, and Muslim Student Associations. And, in 2022, Georgetown became one of only a few universities in the country to have a South Asian Studies certificate program after years of passionate advocacy by South Asian students.
“In the time since I left Georgetown, South Asians have made a name for themselves,” Mody said in regard to the multicultural life on campus.
Although the first year of Rangila was a bare-bones production, it was a success.
“It was a hit! Isn’t that crazy?” Pandya said, describing how audience members filled Gaston Hall that night in 1994.
After such a successful first run, popular demand brought Rangila back again for a second year. In the decades since, the show has become a defining aspect of the Georgetown experience and reshaped the South Asian community on campus.
Pandya and Shah’s vision for a South Asian dance showcase propelled Rangila to become a hallmark of performing arts and culture on campus, drawing hundreds of students and selling out Gaston Hall within minutes each year.
“Things like Rangila make a difference because it is hard to ignore,” Mody said.
With ICC classrooms filled with sweaty dancers practicing most days past 9 p.m. and the constant buzz of campus-wide philanthropy events, the energy of Rangila certainly is difficult to ignore—even more so this year as Rangila celebrates this historic anniversary.
This year, Alison Karki (CAS ’25), Rushil Vashee (SFS ’25), and Rania Khan (SFS ’26) are Rangila’s student coordinators. They’ve embraced the responsibility of making Rangila 30 the most spectacular celebration yet. This year’s performances include the revival of the Afro-fusion dance after ten years and, for the first time ever, the addition of a third show: a Saturday matinee.
“As corny as it sounds, there are 30 years of visionaries,” Vashee said. “We really are dancing under the 30 years of stars before us.”
The notion of 30 years of heritage is what led Karki, Vashee, and Khan to coin the theme of “Under the Stars” for Rangila 30. The show hopes to use the imagery of stars to pay tribute to the performers who came before them.
Each of the student coordinators, like their predecessors, entered Georgetown with a similar sense of uncertainty in how to navigate their South Asian identities on campus. For them, finding Rangila was more than just finding an extracurricular to fill their time—it was about finding a place to celebrate their cultural experiences within a larger community that understood them.
“Someone mentioned it to me when I was feeling super homesick,” Khan, who is originally from Lahore, Pakistan, said. “It made me feel that sense of home at Georgetown.”
Vashee was also introduced to Rangila through another Hoya, though not a fellow student.
“I had office hours with President DeGioia my freshman year. He explained to me what Rangila is and how I should get involved,” Vashee said.
Unlike Vashee and Khan, Karki knew about Rangila before she even arrived at Georgetown.
“I was talking to my family friend who is Nepali, and she’s the one who kind of mentioned Rangila in passing,” Karki said.
Karki was so excited about Rangila that she mentioned the dance showcase during her application interview as a major pull factor to attend Georgetown. Since arriving, Karki has performed in Rangila every year, and she co-choreographed Rangila’s first-ever Nepali dance, Lekali Nepali, in 2022 and 2023.
“I ended up creating Lekali Nepali with that family friend,” Karki said. “It was so full circle and incredible and amazing!”
Karki, Vashee, and Khan all said that Rangila’s philanthropic goals are part of what inspires them about the showcase.
Although nobody interviewed remembers when or why Rangila first started partnering with charities, philanthropy is now an integral part of the annual showcase. This year, Rangila’s philanthropic partner is the Little Sisters Fund (LSF), an organization based in Nepal that empowers young girls using educational programs and community resources and combats human trafficking, gender-based violence, and child labor.
“LSF has just done a phenomenal job with transparency. We’ve seen how each dollar has gone towards a specific scholarship or goes towards making a menstrual health kit,” Karki said.
In the past, Rangila’s philanthropy has contributed to a variety of organizations, fundraising tens of thousands of dollars for Action Against Hunger in 2023 and Distressed Children and Infants in 2022.
Vashee, Khan, and Karki are continuing the legacy of Rangila, honoring the visions of Pandya and Shah and ensuring that South Asian students today have a stronger sense of cultural community than students like Mody did three decades ago.
“With the 30-year history just comes so much growth,” Khan said. “It’s just grown to become so much more of an inclusive space.”
Rangila has certainly evolved from its first “bootstrapped” performance to the sensational showcase it is today, both on campus and nationwide. Rangila 30’s coordinators hope that the group will only continue to grow, incorporating more shows, more South Asian diasporic cultures, and even greater philanthropic efforts.
We, as South Asian students and participants of Rangila over the past two years, have personally witnessed the impact Rangila has had. It has strengthened our bonds with the South Asian community at Georgetown and connected us with a deep-rooted heritage through dance and music. Rangila is a place for communities to merge together in a colorful, energetic environment while making tangible differences in charity causes across South Asia.
“It’s the biggest event on campus, and it’s run by South Asians at a PWI,” Khan said. “Rangila feels magical.”
This year’s glimmering production of Rangila 30: Under the Stars will be held in Gaston Hall on Nov. 22 and 23. You can learn more about Rangila’s history here.
Editor’s Note: Alison Karki is the Editor for Sexual Violence Advocacy, Prevention, and Coverage for the Voice and Rania Khan served as a Copy Assistant in spring 2024.
This article has been corrected to clarify the funding sources behind the first Rangila.
Aashna Nadarajah
Aashna is a sophomore in the SFS majoring in Business and Global Affairs. When she’s not working on the business side of the Voice, you can find Aashna running along the waterfront, trying new restaurants, and watching thriller movies.
Ayushi Das
More: Arts and Culture, Dance, Rangila, South Asian Society
Read More
Voices
Carrying On: Dancing with division
By Julia Jester
Halftime Leisure
So You Think You Can Cry
By Francesca Theofilou
News
Acclaimed Indian dancer speaks about LGBT issues
By Sara Blomquist