Halloween

Last Sunday night was Halloween. We were all travelling back from Mumbai that night, we had a test the next day, and almost noone else in this country was celebrating Halloween, so it looked likely that the holiday would pass without celebration. I was a little disappointed about this. Although I was indifferent to Halloween for several years, I've found that I like the Halloween celebrations I've attended at college. I was slightly sad that, for my last year, there wouldn't be one. After I had accepted this slight disappointment, however, two of the girls decided that they wanted to host a day-late halloween party the next night.

Due to a lack of formal costumes, everyone had to create their own. Many of them were references to TV series that I didn't get, but that seemed to be quite creative. There was also a hillbilly, Cheap Asian Labor, and a sad Obama supporter at midterm elections. The majority of the costumes, due to the resources available, were Indian-themed. Some of us wore the Indian clothing that they had acquired, including me, as you can see above. The two girls on the far sides of the picture came as the spirit of the Diwali holiday, wearing Diwali decorations.



The best costume, in my opinion, was Arturo, who came to the party late dressed as Arnab, who is our program coordinator (which essentially means that he is our babysitter, payed friend, and class TA rolled into one). Arturo did a great imitation of Arnab's mannerisms, as well as his dress, and began to tell us how disappointed he was in our behavior and to clean up the mess we were all making right away. For a second most of us were convinced he was the real Arnab, and we were all very amused. The Arnab impersonation also made his dancing later in the night especially humorous.

At one point in the party, one of the hotel workers, Santosh, walked by and looked in at the roomful of people dancing and laughing in strange outfits with some interest. Santosh is probably about the same age as us. Since he cleans our rooms, and thus sees us frequently, is on pretty friendly terms with everyone. We asked him to come in and join the party, but he looked very embarrased, and left quickly. Usually he is pretty unsurprised by us, but in that case, I don't think he knew what to make of the situation.

Overall, it was a very good time, and I'm glad that I got to have one last, unorthodox college Halloween.