Music, community draw large crowds to Jersey Jammers parties. Photo courtesy of Navya Asopa.
Editor’s Note: This piece was produced in collaboration with Central Desi, whose free weekly newsletter covers New Jersey’s South Asian community.
The day after the Trump administration announced a $100,000 fee for new H-1B applications, hundreds of Desis gathered at a park overlooking the New York skyline in Hoboken. They were there to sing Bollywood songs as a group of musicians called the Jersey Jammers rocked out with guitars and tablas, but the musical gathering quickly morphed into catharsis.
The visa news affected hundreds of thousands of Indians living in the United States, who are one of the largest beneficiaries of the program, and many were worried about whether they would be allowed to stay.
“It was a very sad day for everyone, and then we had our session. A lot of people came up to us and said: Thank you for hosting this,” said Jay Trivedi, a 25-year-old New York City government employee who started Jersey Jammers with a friend.
Two years ago, Trivedi and his friends started getting together in each other’s apartments to play music. They were all from Mumbai, and singing Bollywood songs was a way of reducing their homesickness.
Then they got the idea to take their gatherings outside, so that others could join. They launched Jersey Jammers last year and now have more than 11,000 Instagram followers and hundreds of people turning up for their free weekly jam sessions in Hudson County.
“I or anyone, for that matter, couldn’t even imagine in their wildest dreams that this would grow this fast,” Trivedi said, adding that success comes down “to how well the audience can resonate with you.”
Ten performers comprise the core group, who sing and play the acoustic guitar and tambourines. They also plan and manage the events, take song suggestions, direct the jamming crowd, and include newcomers who frequent their events.
That’s how the Jammers found one of their female lead singers, Parnavi Gabhane. She was enjoying the chorus of Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas among the crowd at one of their events in August, when Trivedi and others invited her to join the team.
“I just felt like I had to go to this community because I felt like I would have a sense of belonging there,” Gabhane, who is also 25 and has a fashion marketing degree.
She remembers her first jamming session in Hoboken. As she sang the songs she grew up with a large crowd and the skyline in view, the moment felt to her like it was “straight out of a Karan Johar movie.”
Many attendees – immigrants from India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Bangladesh – are either master’s students or recent graduates with jobs in the Big Apple and its neighboring states.
Khushi Mittal moved from Mumbai to New York City in 2024, where she knew no one, for a degree in strategic communications at Columbia University. When the 22-year-old first heard about Jersey Jammers on Instagram in December, she was curious to check it out in person. That night, she made new friends, danced to A.R. Rahman’s hit “Chaiyya Chaiyya,” and became a regular attendee.
“I think more than anything, in such times, where everything is so difficult, everything is so up in the air, it’s all the more necessary to have something to look forward to on the weekends,” Mittal said.
Building that community is what keeps the group motivated.
Dhaval Chheda, the other co-founder of Jersey Jammers and a recent graduate of NYU’s School of Business, was part of a rock band with his friends in Mumbai and still rehearses his favorite Arijit Singh songs each morning without fail in his New York City apartment.
Chheda, who is 28, said he helped create the jamming space so people like himself “could come off and just enjoy themselves.”
In most music performances, the audience remains a mere spectator. Here, however, it “actively indulged in the music by singing and vibing along,” Chheda noted, explaining what sets Jersey Jammers apart for him.
When the gatherings swelled to more than 250 people and public parks became less ideal for such a crowd, they started searching for wedding-sized venues. Because the group was committed to keeping the events free, they started reaching out to brands and chipping in themselves to pay for hall rentals.
For Chheda, a thriving immigrant music community makes spending some money worthwhile. He recalled a recent night when the magic of it all came together for him.
“I think it was midnight, and we were all singing outside…I was like, ‘This is it. This is where you find your home.'”
– Dhaval Chheda, Jersey Jammers co-founder
