The India Mid-semester Module trip was awesome. It was a full two weeks of visiting five cities with 29 Goizueta colleagues. Our itinerary:
Fly into Mumbai – 2 days
Fly to Delhi – 3 days
Train to Agra – 1 day
Bus ride to Jaipur – 2 days
Fly to Varanasi – 2 days
Fly back to Delhi – 1 day.
Here are a few of my trip highlights… in pictures:
The Dabawallas in Mumbai
The Nutan Tiffin Box Suppliers Charity Trust better known as ‘dabawallas’ are messengers whose primary business is collecting freshly cooked food in lunch boxes from the residences of office workers (mostly in the suburbs), delivering it to their respective workplaces and returning the empty boxes back to the customer’s residence by using various modes of transport. In 2002, Forbes Magazine found this system’s reliability to be that of a six sigma standard. More than 175,000 or 200,000 lunch boxes get moved every day by an estimated 4,500 to 5,000 dabawallas.
India’s largest mosque – Jama Masjid
Many of the mosques require visitors to take off their shoes… but this one not only required us to wear white slippers but also required women to wear cover ups. We all looked like we were traipsing around in bath robes.
Sikh Mosque – Gurdwara Sis Ganj Sahib
The Gurdwara Sis Ganj Sahib is built at the site in the Chandni Chowk area of Old Delhi. We visited the mosque during our tour of Old Delhi – we rode on rickshaws to get here.
Dosai
A southern Indian staple dish – this crepe/pancake type food was so yummy! This is a masala dosai – A masala dosai is made by stuffing a dosai with a lightly cooked filling of potatoes, fried onions and spices. And then you dip this in sambar, a spicy sauce. I was always in search of spicy food!
Bandwhari village
Definitely an interesting contrast to go from Medanta – Medicity (huge hospital) to a village with a concrete three-room clinic. This village was located about 10 miles outside of Gurgaon (just outside of Delhi), and it had just recently received funding to build a small clinic. We visited the village to see a different side of India.
Taj Mahal
Visiting Agra was very worth it. How cool to see one of the 7 Wonders of the World (there are a million lists and they’re all different – The Taj Mahal is usually on the list of the 7 Wonders of the Middle Ages/Medieval Ages).
Riding elephants
On our way to the top of Amber Fort in Jaipur, we rode elephants! My elephant’s name was Champac:) And evidently it was a race because he passed a few of the other elephants on the way up.
Weavers
We took a day to understand the rug weaving industry. We started by visiting a village where the weavers lived and worked. This village in particular had 3 looms, with about 9 weavers. Each worked about 8 hours a day to earn 100 rupees. It was very interesting to see them working on the rugs under an open hut. This is were the famous Rajasthan rugs are weaved! After visiting the village, we saw the finishing work space (where they clean the rugs and add the final touches), and then we saw the corporate offices. A 360 view of Rajasthan rug production and all that goes into it.
What a trip. There’s so much more to say, and I took about 2000 pictures, but this is a pretty good look at some of the interesting parts of the trip. Overall, it was a very nice mix of learning about culture, business, and everyday life. I’d definitely recommend this module!
Read the full article: Namaste