Clubs for specific ethnicities are common on college campuses. But one such club at Mercer University takes a different approach than most by including those not a part of the ethnicity into their celebrations.

It’s called Mercer Masala, a club started by South Asian students of Mercer. In late fall, they sponsored the campus Diwali Festival, a celebration that filled the room with the smells of Indian cuisine and women dressed in colorful sarees. Diwali is the Hindu Festival of Lights, a religious holiday.

“What we try to do is share our culture with everyone else,” said Mercer senior Utkarsh Parwal, who founded Mercer Masala. Parwal said the idea of the new organization was to bring the Southeast Asian population and the rest of the Mercer community together.

The university’s acappella choir performed at the festival. Although most of the members of the club are of Southeast Asian descent, most of the faces in the choir and at the festival were not.

After raffling off a few Mercer Masala t-shirts, club members assembled on the stage to sing a song that isn’t exactly traditional. They sang Hello by Adele in English and Hindi.

“Masala translates to spice…flavor, and I think that’s really what we bring to the community,” said Parwal, who was a member of the Indian Cultural Exchange Club before creating Mercer Masala. “I think inclusiveness is more important than just exclusivity,”

Parwal believes there is no benefit to a club that just caters to one group of people.

“That type of organization should not be considered a student organization,” he said

Parwal is graduating this year, but he has faith that his organization will continue to grow without him.

“I want to see how something we started grew into Mercer...became part of the Mercer atmosphere,” he added

Mercer Masala is planning for their biggest spring event, the Hindu festival of Holi. Traditionally, revelers hurl brightly colored paint at each other, which is something college students of any ethnicity can get into to.

Tags: Culture, ethnicity, Mercer Masala, Indian, campus, campus life