Steph K. Jan. 10

The differences between Coimbature and Mumbai are immense. For starters, the weather is much nicer here, it's got a real beachy feel. The food is also much different. I was expecting more spice in the south, but actually the food is less spicy and agrees more with my stomach.

Karpagam University students are totally different than the Somaiya students. They are all slightly younger. Here they are around 20 and 21 in their MA program while I believe the ladies at Somaiya told me they prefer to have some experience, and some of them were around 25. They are also much more traditional socially. In Mumbai the ladies wore their saris to show us what traditional dress looked like, and it was nice to see them later in the day wearing the clothes they’d typically wear to classes. However, in Coimbature, the ladies told me that they wear the sarees every day and they don’t ever wear western garb. It is also taboo to socialize alone with men.

I met three ladies who were all very curious about the differences between our two cultures. We asked each other about cultural norms and school and career choices. I asked what their career aspirations were and they all seemed confused by that question. They were management students, so they wanted to be managers. They didn’t know in which field or have any preferences except that the company they work with preferably be American or European. I asked them if they socialize with the male students and if they are respectful in class, and they told me that in and out of class the males respect them like goddesses, but they are very shy about socializing in public. However, later in the afternoon one of the girls was talking on the phone with a boy while keeping it hidden in her purse from the professors. They all will have arranged marriages and the told me that no matter what they want to do after graduation, first their parents will have them married, and then their husband’s family will ultimately decide where she can and cannot work. They all agreed that this was alright, and they weren’t upset that they probably wouldn’t be making decisions for themselves. They seemed much more reserved than the women in Mumbai.

In general, there are large cultural differences between females in Mumbai and in Coimbature. The ladies in Coimbature are more traditional, and their social skills are more equal to what we would think about high school girls. Their questions actually overwhelmed me and combined with the heat and bumpy bus ride, I was literally exhausted and had to go back to the hotel early. It was a great experience to meet the ladies and get a sense of the differences around the country, but unfortunately it put me into system overload.