Summer in South Asia Fellows Blogs

While there, this year’s fellows will be blogging to keep their friends, family, and CSAS staff members up-to-date on their travels and adventures. You can read their blogs here and follow along with their work and travel experiences in India. Happy reading!

This past week on May 1, I arrived in Mysore (Mysuru), a city in India's southwestern Karnataka state, starting my internship with the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM), an NGO working towards developing human and social capital to build a resurgent India, involved in areas including health, education, socio-economic empowerment, and training and research. Over the past week, I have been introduces to the various works that SVYM does. I spent the first couple of days at the main office in Mysuru, Karnataka, meeting with numerous faculty members to learn more about the work they do. I also spent a day travelling with a group of a nurses and doctors on their palliative home care visits and counseling sessions. On my day off, I travelled to the markets near Mysore's center with a friend I made at the Palliative Care Centre, exploring this beautiful city. 

On May 5, I travelled to a small town south of Mysore, Sargur, which houses the Vivekananda Memorial Hospital (VMH), a 100 bedded hospital with 24/7 emergency care facility serving rural and tribal communities. This week I am getting introduced to the work they are doing here, particularly the various interventions and initiatives they do in fields of HIV, TB, Palliative Care, and Mobile Health Units. Eventually I will share the sustainable goals I have generated. Overall, I am learning a lot about SVYM as a whole and I am excited to learn more and contribute! 

I am updating from my second week of interning with the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement, delving into the health sector. I relocated from Mysore to Sargur, about an hour and half south of Mysore, which sits the Vivekananda Memorial Hospital, and many of their community health initiatives. This week, I primarily tagged along many of the different initiatives they do here, including Palliative Home Care visits, Mobile Health Unit, and various health camps they engage with the local tribal and non-tribal communities. I was tasked by my mentor with a large subset of data from the Mobile Health Unit and compiled some graphs that show trends. I also updated their Sustainable Development Goals of this year. 

Overall, I am enjoying my experience, initially it was a little tough because of changes in my diet and environment. But I became acquainted with a fellow intern and travelled back to Mysore this past Sunday! I'm excited for this upcoming week of delving into more community health initiatives. 

I am updating from my third week of interning with the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM) in Sargur at the Vivekananda Memorial Hospital (VMH) This week I continued to participate in more of the community health initiatives in the local community, such as various "camps" where health professionals go to different areas and assist the community on general health or eye health. I also learned more about a research study being conducted at VMH called HeLTI (Healthy Lives Trajectory Initiative), a research initiative to develop and test interventions to prevent obesity in children and promote child development. The randomized interventions with three arms (pre-conception, pregnancy and control), will reduce childhood adiposity, improve cardiovascular and metabolic health, and improve child neurodevelopmental outcomes. This is a study that is happening in many countries across the world, and I was able to engage in home visits for bio sample collection. 

I continued to work on the tasks from the week prior and in my free time, would go on walks in the town! I met lots of people and spent the weekend back in Mysore sightseeing, seeing the numerous landmarks in the area. Approaching my final week, I am preparing for my final presentation and wrapping up the activities I have been working on!

This week I did my final presentation in Sargur, reflecting on my time with SVYM, and providing feedback to the internship program they offer. I spent my last few days back in Mysore, working on small tasks with their Palliative Care Centre. I did final sightseeing activities and goodbyes to the friends I made along the way, but I was ready to come home. I learned a lot about healthcare in India and a rural setting, and also a lot about cultural influences on healthcare. This experience encouraged me to consider a thesis my senior year about the intersection of culture and healthcare in a global setting. Thank you CSAS for this opportunity!

I arrived in Bangalore on May 13. From May 13 to May 17 I spent time with my family. On May 17, I took an overnight bus to travel to Manipal/Udupi.

On May 18, I explored Udupi. I went to the Malpe Beach and the Udupi Sri Krishna Temple. On May 19, I checked into the University administrative offices at MAHE. I got access to the hostel where I will be staying and I met my internship contacts. 

On May 20, I traveled by bus to a preventative breast and cervical cancer screening clinic in Hattiangadi, Karnataka which was a great experience.

Yesterday, on May 21, I traveled by bus to a community health center in Kota, Karnataka. So far, it has been a meaningful experience to understand the state of medical care in rural communities. I am very grateful for this opportunity!

Over the past week, I have visited additional rural health centers in Kumbashi and Brahmavara and the Udupi District Hospital, which treats all patients for only 10 rupees (equivalent to 12 cents in USD).

Additionally, I visited an Anganwadi with the Kasturba Medical College students to educate the children on hand-washing techniques and healthy food choices. An Anganwadi is a rural child care center established by the government of India to improve the nutritional and health status of children aged 0-6 and pregnant and lactating mothers.

I am learning a lot about how the Indian government healthcare system works and the most pressing health concerns faced by low-resource communities. Thank you for this opportunity!

I have been enjoying my time in India! This week, I attend several free psychiatry and substance de-addiction clinics around Udupi. I participated in a campaign for World No Tobacco Day and even got featured in the local newspaper. Additionally, I have started shadowing doctors in the Kasturba Hospital OB/GYN department.

I have been enjoying my time in India, and I am shocked at how fast time has flown! Last week, I spent a lot of time shadowing physicians in the Kasturba Hospital OB/GYN department. I had the opportunity to enter the OR to witness cesarean sections and hysterectomy surgeries. Additionally, I was posted in the Labor Ward, where I witnessed a live normal birth. This experience has helped me understand further the aspects of medicine I would like to incorporate in my future career as a physician. I have also learned so much about the differences in healthcare delivery in India vs the United States.

I arrived in Bengaluru, India on May 15 and took a bus to Karaikudi that night. This was my first time traveling to India by myself and also my first time using the local transportation here alone. My internship begins in June so I spent the last week with my grandparents. I also visited some of my extended family. This week was also the beginning of the Karaikudi Thiruvizha, a ten day long festival associated with the Koppudaiya Nayagi Amman Temple. I enjoyed visiting the intricate architecture and seeing the beautifully decorated deities. I am looking forward to tomorrow when the main event will occur. 

This past week, I got to attend the main event of the Karaikudi Thiruvizha, the temple car festival. I knew it would be crowded since the city's population is over 300,000 people (about five times my hometown!), but I was still surprised to see how packed the streets were, without any space to move. The wheel of the temple car was as tall as me, which was amazing to see up close.

I also went to two special birthday celebrations, an 80th and a 90th. These are really meaningful in Tamil culture and mark a couple’s completion of their family responsibilities. I met some friends I hadn’t seen in years and it was really nice to catch up and get blessings from the couples. I also visited the tombstone of my great-great-grandparents for the first time. It felt really special since most people here are cremated, but they were buried and are considered sacred in our family. I’m traveling back to Bangalore soon and am excited to start my internship. Before I start, I plan to spend the next week exploring this city a bit more. While it’s widely known for its temples and architecture, I’m hoping to also check out some local markets and clothing shops.

This is my third weekly update. Throughout the last week, I ate a lot of delicious street and restaurant food, such as dosas, parottas, pani puri and fresh sugarcane juice. I also took a day trip to Kothamangalam, a nearby town known for its grand Chettinad-style mansions. One highlight was seeing the Rao Bahadur house, which has been a popular filming location for several popular South Indian movies. I spent time exploring street shops and clothing stores. Since I don’t drive here, I’ve been walking everywhere. It's a new experience to see all the traffic on the roads and how close everything is to where I stay, as every place I would need to regularly go is within a fifteen minute walk. I also got to learn a few traditional Tamil skills! I practiced tying jasmine flower garlands, which are often worn in women’s hair and offered at temples. I also learned how to draw kolams, flour designs that are drawn outside homes every morning before anyone steps outside. This allowed me to learn a little more about Tamil culture. I traveled back to Bangalore recently, and today, I’m officially starting my internship! I’ll be using local transportation apps to get to and from work and I’m excited to see how it goes and meet everyone at the office.

This week, I started my internship. I met some of the staff and another intern. Everyone’s been really welcoming and even gave me suggestions for weekend trips like treks and palace visits. The office is connected to the Art of Living ashram, so they serve lunch, hold yoga classes, and do a weekly pooja on Thursdays, which was new to me. At home, I’ve been playing board games and watching Hindi movies. I also visited some big department stores, much larger than I expected, and found great deals on Indian earrings, which I love. For commuting, I’ve been using Uber to get to and from the office. Work-wise, I did data collection, conducted a competitive analysis of similar products, and created a presentation of my findings. I picked up some Python, improved my Excel skills, and practiced professional communication.

I've now finished two weeks at my internship. This week was very similar to last week and I was able to get into a routine. The timing is very flexible and I only have to be there around 10am. It is definitely a new experience to have to communicate with the auto drivers, especially as many don't speak English, and default to Kannada, the official language here. I went to my cousin's birthday party this week and met some new people my age which was fun. Internship-wise, I am enjoying my time and feel like I am learning new things and getting experience in the workplace, which is what I wanted to do. One challenge that I am facing that I did not think of before is not having change to pay the auto drivers. I have a lot of 100 rupees but often, I need 10s and 20s, and I also do not have a PhonePe account. Next week, I am planning to sightsee some more.

This week, I visited my uncle’s family. It was just a 25 km trip, but it took over 2 hours by cab, which is definitely much longer than in Michigan traffic. I also went on a hike near a local lake and visited a model village that showcased olden day, rural Karnataka life through detailed exhibits. I spent a lot of time with my cousins, playing board games, going on walks, watching Tamil TV shows, and catching up after many years. I had planned to visit Isha Adiyogi, but I came down with a fever over the weekend, so I hope to visit there later. At my internship, I started working with a different department. I’m focusing more on visualizing data and analyzing how users interact with the company’s app across different variables.

This is only my second day in India, so I don't have any major updates to share. These first four days, I am in Hyderabad, not at my job site. While here, I am visiting tourist destinations while working asynchronously through some initial onboarding tasks. Today I visited Charminar and Birla Mandir. 

I just completed my first week in India. I am now located between two towns in Andhra Pradesh. My first few days at the office, I completed orientation work, met with multiple directors of the Fish Welfare Initiative to get up to speed on what their departments were working on and got to know my coworkers. This week I’ll be with the R&D team, so today I got trained on field work protocols for a fish farm visit tomorrow. I ride on the back of my coworker’s motorbike to work every day, and we usually grab dinner together afterwards or eat on the floor of my flat. Now that I’m with my coworkers, I feel much safer and more comfortable trying new things, unlike in Hyderabad, where I had some experiences that ranged from uncomfortable to interesting. 

This is the start of my third week in India. This week I visited over ten fish farms and I was trained in taking water quality measurements. Outside of my internship, I went hiking at an ancient fort, and visited a stray dog rehabilitation center where most of the dogs had sustained horrific injuries after being hit by vehicles in the crazy Indian traffic. It was completely different from the animal centers I'm used to visiting in the U.S. 

Last week I was with the operations team, the China team, and the executive director. It was my busiest week yet and I got to work on a wide range of projects. I also had some conversations that I think will have a lasting impact on my career trajectory. This weekend we went to ride go carts and drop some people off at the airport. On the way there, we found a stray dog unresponsive on the side of the road that we tried to rescue. She died in the backseat. We also had a revolutionaries night at a local bar midway through the week to talk about factory farming and cultural traditions that harm animals.