A new a cappella group has recently formed on campus -- but only a few students will be able to understand what they're singing. Engineering freshman Naveen Wadhera has founded an a cappella group with four other students who will be singing exclusively in Hindi. "Hindi a cappella has never been done anywhere," he said. Hindi music differs from typical American tunes because sheet music is rarely available for the songs. Group members will be forced to transcribe the notes from tapes alone, Wadhera explained. Another founder of the fledgling group, Engineering freshman Sumit Bothra, said the idea came to him at the beginning of last semester. After seeing a number of a cappella groups at the annual Performing Arts Night, Bothra decided to start a group with Wadhera, Engineering and Wharton senior Santosh Govindaraju, College freshman Himanshu Sheth and Engineering freshman Kunal Bajaj, a Daily Pennsylvanian photographer. "It turns out that there was a lot of interest," he said. Wharton sophomore Ankur Vora said he thought the group would help bring the University's Indian community closer together. "It's a lasting cultural thing," he explained. "I'd definitely go see them." Bothra said he was "pleasantly surprised" by the number of students who came to audition for the group Saturday. "There was a tremendous response at our auditions -- loads of people showed up at Houston Hall," he said. Indeed, interest in the group was so great that the founders were unable to accommodate everyone who came, and were forced to schedule a second audition for today. While the group was originally going to be restricted to males, many females have also expressed interest, Botha said. "Girls have been calling us, saying that they want to do it too," he said. "They're demanding that we hold auditions for them." And the excitement is not limited to the Penn Indian population, Wadhera said. Although the group has not even uttered a note, it is already in demand outside the University. The response from the Indian communities at Rutgers, New York and Cornell universities has been overwhelming, Botha added. "They told us to get up there immediately and get this thing on the road," he said. Wadhera added that the group's goal is to perform at the annual South Asian Society Conference, which this year will be held at Brown University at the end of April.
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