Rahala : Mumbai

We arrived at the Somaiya campus at midnight on the second of January. This whole experience in Mumbai has been mostly expected since I was born and raised in India and have visited Mumbai several times. It was my first time at the campus, the hospitality that we received from the time we landed till now has been amazing and I am very thankful them for doing all the hard work that they did for us. Growing in up India I never appreciated all the things that were done for us here. Now that I look at this from an outsiders perspective I realized how spoiled I was as a child.
Other issues such as the gender equality and poverty in India. I didn't really see much difference in these issues, but i felt as if I was more aware of it this time and saw that there were more initiatives being taken to resolve them. I learned about how the urban women are changing and progressing as leaders while managing their home life's. The panel discussion that we had on campus helped me understand where the stereotypes of women in India come from. One of the women said that for the women in America getting a higher education is security but for women in India getting married is seen as security. This made a lot of sense to me helped me understand why families especially rural want to marry off their daughter at a young age.
We also got to do a lot of fun stuff such as shopping, going to an amusement/water park, and interaction with the local student. I got to do bargaining on my own for the first time. The interaction with students was the best part, learning about their college as well as their daily life style. It was also interesting to hear from the students what they thought of us and the stereotypes that they had about Americans.