Painted lehengas and Parle-G cookie boxes adorn wooden set panels of the Agassiz—affectionately dubbed the “Ag.” Bollywood vocals mixed with piano, guitar, and percussion echo through the theater. Spots, PAR cans, and Fresnels illuminate the stage. 12 dancers in classical Indian attire stand in four lines. The first dance of Ghungroo 2025 is about to begin.
Honoring a diaspora that has existed for over 2,500 years, Ghungroo combines assorted acts of dance, music, drama, and art entirely choreographed, written, created, and performed by undergraduates to pay an annual homage to South Asian culture. Since its inception in 1988, Ghungroo has grown to become Harvard’s largest student-run production.
Each year, the show centers around a core idea that guides the cast through weeks of consistent rehearsals, set painting shifts, and collaboration. Ghungroo 2025 embraced the theme of “Rooted,” alluding to the common ancestors and lands that connect the show’s manifold of dialects, styles, and cultures. “We seek to uncover our roots—to learn the languages, savor the flavors, and understand and reconcile with the history that forms the backbone of our heritage. We seek a home that spans both worlds,” Ghungroo wrote when announcing this motif.
The cast came together for four shows from Feb. 20 to Feb. 23 on the Agassiz stage to present their months of dedication framed within this concept.
However, while the Thursday through Sunday run is exciting in its entirety, there is one particular show that remains long-awaited by performers, crew, and audience members. Widely known as the “Ghungroo alumni show,” Saturday night reminds the team that this organization fosters a community across generations as Harvard College graduates return to reminisce and celebrate the new team’s production. And apart from these students, parents and grandparents are always in attendance, proudly watching their children embrace the rhythms and tongues of their origins and honor the cross-cultural path they paved.
As Ghungroo continued to write, the show is “an homage to the courage with which those before us planted their dreams, pushing roots through rocky earth, anchoring a strong foundation for future generations.”
After realizing neither of us were well-versed enough on the sitar for a musical act or sufficiently experienced with lights and sound for the tech team, we chose to join Ghungroo 2025’s Underground dance.
Often described as “Desi-hip-hop,” the dance style blends traditional Desi music styles with global street movement to create a unique art form. Though often perceived as mere techno beats paired with smooth yet punctuated movement, the Underground dance goes beyond the steps as it embodies South Asian culture. Each year, Ghungroo’s Underground dance leverages the soundtrack and choreography to reflect the style’s fusion.
Merging KR$NA, Mukesh, and Shankar Jaikishan’s “Joota Japani” with Tyler the Creator’s “Sticky,” our dance welcomed the genre’s background through a melding of American and Indian sounds. We moved in Bhangra steps before sliding into body rolls. And after approximately three minutes, the lights dimmed, and our team cheered as we ran backstage.
Apart from the rewarding experience of performing our final product, watching our dance progress from the studio to the stage was equally as memorable. Throughout February, we consistently made our way to the Harvard Dance Center to practice the carefully choreographed moves of Saara Chaudry ’26, Ananya Choudhary ’27, and Gauri Sood ’26. We spent weeks practicing and perfecting our performance of South Asian diasporic culture while building a community within our dance.
And as a result of our Desi upbringing, this dance resonated with each of us.
Sachi: Participating in the Underground dance was a unique way to connect with my South Asian roots while also actively acknowledging how the culture morphs and changes due to the ever-evolving traditions. The fusion of hip-hop and Indian dance steps allowed me to explore the flexibility of the South Asian space and how art forms such as dance can encompass the complex cultural experience of diaspora and displacement.
When I was five years old, my parents enrolled me in a form of Indian classical dance, Kathak. Despite their best efforts, I lacked much interest in dedicating any number of hours per week to exploring my culture through music and dance. I was much more interested in learning to ice skate. Reflecting on my brief experience with Kathak, I realize that at five years old (and in the years after), I did not fully appreciate how I could connect to my identity through the arts. Though I loved lounging on the couch to watch “Rab Ne Bana di Jodi” for the fiftieth time, I could not see myself up on a stage participating. Joining Ghungroo allowed me to immerse myself in my heritage in a whole new way, one that allowed me to be up on stage alongside my Bollywood favorites.
Sara: Despite my Punjabi and Gujarati roots, I have rarely immersed myself in South Asian cultural spaces. Raised in immigrant households, both my parents were taught to suppress their ethnic heritage to properly assimilate into American life. After hearing how the alien clothing, thick accents, and coarse hair had estranged our Desi peers, their parents believed that white-washing would maximize long-term success. My dad’s first name of “Madhur” became “Alan,” kurtas shortened to Gymboree t-shirts, and English replaced both my parents’ Hindi.
Such values translated into my upbringing. This doesn’t mean my family hasn’t always appreciated the delicate beading on the lehengas we wore on Diwali or the Nastaliq script remaining on old Indian snack boxes that now held Club Crackers in our pantry. However, after 19 years of being raised as an “American,” by the time I realized I wanted to fully reconnect with my South Asian heritage, I felt too estranged from the space to engage with the culturally rich community.
But after arriving at Harvard and seeing the power of the diaspora on campus, I knew I wanted to get involved. Joining the Ghungroo Underground dance this year was an incredible experience. I built relationships across a community I never thought I would have the opportunity to truly discover and was reminded that it is never too late to immerse yourself in your heritage.
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Our passion for this organization was shared by many. “Ghunghroo allows me to have a space that I can call home away from home. It’s a beautiful experience where everyone from the South Asian community comes together to celebrate the identity that binds them together,” an anonymous member expressed.
We are both looking forward to continuing Ghungroo in the coming years. The friendships we fostered while taking the shuttle to the Quad, the laughs we tried to stifle as our crisp dance formations slowly disintegrated, and our outbursts of cheers on-and-off stage after every three-minute performance will forever last.
However, we are also excited to continue working on and with a production that extends beyond South Asian expression to become a form of activism.
As a genre, Underground is a cultural phenomenon.
Experimental Bollywood artist and Underground pioneer Nitin Sawhney commented on the power of this music in a 2019 interview with The Guardian. “The whole idea of the movement was that cultural change could occur and that Asians would feel they have relevance and identity within the wider culture—that’s what was exciting. Not this idea that we were underground, but that we were part of music,” he explained.
The concept of being a “part” of something was particularly emblematic of the genre. Gaining traction in the UK after the nation’s Indian immigrant boom, the Guardian explains how “the music these first-generation British Asians made was full of internal tension.” Working to fight for their place in this new, slowly diversifying country, the “tension” inherent in the movement slowly loosened to open the door for Indian dancers to express themselves within the freeform space between traditional styles and Western influences.
Our costume is a great example of the message of counterculture imbued in Underground. The majority of Ghungroo dances donned traditional Indian ghagra cholis, sarees, or dupattas. However, we wore taupe t-shirts hanging off our shoulders and black cargo pants that dragged across the floor. Although at times we undeniably envied the flow of our friends’ vibrant purple and orange Bollywood skirts, we reminded ourselves that the clothing was symbolic of something greater: representation and the refusal to blindly conform.
Additionally, the Tibetan Uyghur dance reminded us of the power of Ghungroo as the dancers waved the flags of Tibet and East Turkestan on the stage, calling for the liberation of their people from the People’s Republic of China. The choreographers—Tenzin Yiga ’27 and Kawsar Yasin ’26—and performers leveraged their art as a form of action and empowerment, reminding the audience that their homelands are currently at risk of cultural erasure while using their three minutes on stage to keep their heritage alive.
“We chose to choreograph a Tibetan/Uyghur dance at Ghungroo to not only share our cultures with the Harvard community and gain visibility, but to illustrate the vibrancy and resilience of our diasporas,” Yiga and Yasin explained. “It shows how our liberation is intertwined as Tibetans and Uyghurs have engaged in the struggle for freedom together in recent decades. As we remember our roots and pay homage to our histories that transcend borders, we also hold the radical hope of a free Tibet and East Turkistan.”
Ghungroo is so much more than a four-night production; it extends beyond dances, skits, and spoken-word performances as a form of solidarity.
As we finished reading the explanation behind the theme, we connected with the words as they embodied the passion we feel for Ghungroo, the community we found within the space, and the ideas it represents.
“[Ghungroo] is a narrative of longing and discovery that follows the physical and metaphorical quest to connect with our heritage. With each step on our route, together we will dig beneath the surface of our ancestral tree, unearth stories, and navigate the tangled roots that connect us all.”
Sara Kumar ’27 (sjkumar@college.harvard.edu) and Sachi Laumas ’26 (slaumas@college.harvard.edu) are still singing the Underground mix.