Bhangra

Get a few wine coolers and some STEM majors, and they will quickly discover that, yes, motion does in fact generate heat.

Culture shows were the main event on campus for years, but all that changed in 1993 when students at George Washington University held the first intercollegiate South Asian dance competition in America called Bhangra Blowout.

Bhangra Blowout was a huge hit.

Teams traveled across the country to compete, and it kickstarted tons of new dance teams and a wave of sister competitions in the late '90s and early 2000s, competitions like Bruin Bhangra in LA and Boston Bhangra.

Soon, students doing different dance styles like Garba and Raas also formed their own competitions, like Raas Chaos, Dandia Dhamaka, and Garba With Attitude.

You can almost hear the Indian accent that pitched that name, Garba With Attitude.

Remember, these are all separate competitions for different styles of dance.

Garba and Raas are traditional folk dances from Gujarat, India.

Yeah.

Outside the kitchen, he's a Bhangra dancer and his wedding shimmy, his wedding shimmy has become legendary.

I'm hoping we're going to see this at some point.

So Nikki's doing the podium dancing at the party.

I didn't realize that Canada universities don't have this.

I mean, you guys must have South Asian dance groups and Bhangra groups and stuff like that.

I

guess maybe.

It...

I used... [laughs] So I used to do Bhangra lessons.

What?

What? Bhangra lessons.

Bhangra?

Yeah.

Oh, it's one of these things you say.

What's Bhangra? What is this? Dance, like...

What am I talking about? Bharnatyam and Kathak.

I'm talking about Kuthu, Bhangra, and then Hindi film, which is a combination of all of those, plus hip hop, jazz, and contemporary to make something new.

And that was about youth.

The youth are making something new and they're planting their flag.

Uh-huh.

But then we also had to do Bharatanatyam and Kathak and Garba and, like, like, let's try Bhangra and, um, just all these other styles of South Asian dance, 'cause there's so many.

Like, cultural, like, culturally dependent.

Mm-hmm.

But as an entrepreneur, the third bucket, you don't get too much sometimes, but you have to fight to get that bucket as well.

But you do, right? You learn singing, you learn Bhangra, a dance form.

Who knows, tomorrow you may start learning another instrument.

You read.

And I was 20 years old at UC Berkeley.

And a student leader of the Muslim Student Association, F my life, I should have joined the Indian Student Association and learned how to Bhangra.

But I was, you know, vice president of the MSA.

And I got my first email that day on 9-11, even though born and raised in America to Pakistani Muslim immigrant parents had nothing to do with 9-11, much like Mamdani or Abdul El-Sayed or Dara Elisa Chevalier or 1.7 billion Muslims.

I love

Bhangra.

Yeah, Punjabi.

Bhangra.

Remixes.

I mean,