Lively music, bright colors, and an abundance of cultural activities and learning transformed Underwood and the Elson Courtyard into a lively mock Indian wedding. Organized by the South Asian Society (SAS) and funded by an Abbot Grant, this event offered attendees an engaging way to experience South Asian culture.
Mock weddings are often held to demonstrate cultural traditions and bring communities together. Anish Kumar ’28, the groom in the wedding, shared SAS’s inspiration behind this event.
“Last year, the ASA (African Student Association) hosted a mock African wedding, and SAS took inspiration off of that. We’re trying to show different wedding cultures. We’ve seen African, now we’re showing Indian. Today, Rachel [Levitzky ’28] and I are getting mock-married,” said Kumar.
The event featured multiple performances and activities, including henna and traditional dance performances. SAS provided many cultural dishes, including Gulab Jamun, a sweet dessert, and Shahi Paneer, a creamy, aromatic North Indian curry. Although SAS strived to create an authentic South Asian wedding, Kaya Mangani ’27 described how the event deviated from tradition, yet still was an enjoyable experience for all attendees.
“We deviated from a traditional Indian wedding in the sense that, first off, for a typical Indian Hindu wedding, [there are] multiple days and multiple ceremonies culminating in the actual wedding ceremony, which tends to be a lot of prayer and religious practices. So, in order to make it more inclusive and not really focus on the religious aspect… we decided to focus more on the dance and henna aspect of it. The bride and all of the bride’s side of the family come together to get their henna done, and there’s also the Sangeet night, which tends to be the day before the wedding, where all of the families perform. There’s a lot of fun dancing, a lot of fun music,” said Mangani.
The event was made possible by the Abbot Academy Grants. With the money given to SAS for the event, the board was able to hire performers, music, and catering for the wedding. At the same time, managing the budget and coordinating all of the guests and services became one of the greatest challenges when putting this event together. As a board member, Nishi Amin ’28 gave a behind-the-scenes look at the preparations for the mock wedding.
“The most challenging part of this wedding has definitely been all of the planning. The main part of it was contacting all these different people who needed to come and help make this mock wedding possible. For example, the henna artist and getting a Bhangra group from MIT. We had to contact multiple people to find the cheapest, most affordable options because we are funding this through the Abbot Grant. And so we really wanted to make sure that we’re getting a proper use out of all our money. So we definitely needed to do a lot of emailing and texting back and forth with a bunch of people, and that took a lot of effort and energy,” said Amin.
For Mangani, the mock wedding was a way to share South Asian culture with the broader community in an accessible, engaging, and educational way. Beyond sharing traditions, the event reflected SAS’s broader mission to create a community where both South Asian and non-South Asian people can connect with this culture.
“South Asian Society is a non-affinity club. So we’re trying to get everybody aware of what South Asian culture actually is, because even though we’re not as largely represented on campus. There are still a pretty significant number of students who identify as South Asian, and even those who don’t are still interested in the culture and what we do. So making it accessible to everyone is something we really try to do in this event. making it free for entry, making it non-affinity, and then really advertising it as more of a fun [way to] learn about the culture. Connecting back to our mission of making it for everybody, making it fun for everybody, and just making it an overall educational experience about South Asian culture,” said Mangani.
