Post 3, Courtney Williams

Yesterday we arrived in Coimbatore, it's a much cleaner, but more conservative place than Mumbai. Before we landed here we flew over a beautiful mountain range, I think it was a fitting first impression of the city. The people here are very hospitable, and we've been presented with several gifts already such as saree's and salwar kameez, which is a dress, scarf and pant set.
We've been to two schools here now, and met several highly influential women entrepreneurs. One of these women was Rajshree Pathy, the chairman and managing director of Rajshree Sugars and Chemicals. We learned so much from her, because she went to school at Harvard and was able to give us a lot of cultural insight because of her experiences in America. She talked about how what we often see as discrimination, or lack of respect towards a woman of power, doesn’t really happen here, what does happen, however, is a lack of respect towards female peers, which I feel is close to the opposite of what happens in the united states. Her presence itself was very powerful and poised, the more I learned about her life (as she showed us a video about her from CNBC and talked with us for awhile) the more impressed I became with her strength. Something that she mentioned about herself really stuck with me, and made her a bit of a role model in my eyes. She said that she is the same person, at home with her family, out on the street, in the factories, and in the office. She doesn’t try to pretend she is a cold masculine figure to gain power and respect, she lives as the same warm person wherever she is, she is always a mother, wife, and executive, at the same time. This lack of separation, which I think is the opposite of what most American women try to achieve, can always be seen. For instance when visiting sugar cane farmers she would bring her infant son along with her, and even now that he is older, when he is on break for college in England he comes to the office with her. She has never hesitated to be there for her children, even at the expense of the business, but not to the extent that it rules the entirety of her life. The balance that she has achieved is enviable at the very least.