Freshers

There is some sort of ritual event here called "Freshers," which welcomes the freshman class into the department. In addition to Freshers organized by department, tonight was the hostel (dorm)'s fresher. In addition to going through every freshman personally introducing themselves in the auditorium (a process which took a long time not only because of the number of people but because Indians seem to want to put their two cents in about everything instead of the usual awkward "my name is and I'm a freshman."), there were also dances and songs from all areas of India.

For some reason, a lot of my friends come from the North Eastern states of Assam or Meghalaya, so it was cool to hear their music (and watch them get super excited about it, my friends can be rather rambunctious).

It was also super cool to see everyone in their traditional clothes, though a lot of the sari wearers needed help finding someone who actually knew how to wear a sari. It was like when boys have to wear ties for formal occasions but don't actually know how to tie the knot, just leave it in from the last time they wore one. In traditional American style, I borrowed a black dress. I was going to go in jeans and say that was traditional American clothes, but this was more formal and maybe more accurate.

I'll post come classic girl facebook style pictures of my friends in their traditional outfits when my camera is returned to me, probably with a hundred more pictures on it.