{"id":33,"date":"2017-10-02T04:52:48","date_gmt":"2017-10-02T04:52:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/nvemireddy\/?p=33"},"modified":"2017-10-02T16:14:48","modified_gmt":"2017-10-02T16:14:48","slug":"reflecting-upon-my-time-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/nvemireddy\/2017\/10\/02\/reflecting-upon-my-time-in-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflecting Upon My Time in India"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whenever anyone asks me about my time in India, I always chuckle and explain how I can never describe it to give it the full I use words as amazing<\/i> and great<\/i>, but my experience was not all just fun and happy moments. However, without getting too personal, \u00a0I realized that I learned five key lessons about myself and my future.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. My love for goats<\/strong>. Anyone who follows my Instagram (you should if you don\u2019t already) knows how much I love goats, especially baby goats. Because of GSBF, one of my life goals is to own a baby goat.\n
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    A passion for goats spread through my body quickly.<\/p><\/div>\n

    Grab some popcorn because I am about to tell you how my passion for goats entertained a whole village. On our first day of our field visit to JJSS, we (Maya, I, Neil, and Bhaumik) had to wait ten minutes for our car to come pick us up. A group of 30 villagers were with us, asking Neil\/Bhaumik questions about Maya and I while taking photos of the two foreigners. In the corner of my eye, I saw a big black goat, and I quickly ran over to it to pick it up. The villagers saw how excited and happy I was. As they were teaching me how to say goat in Hindi, a woman sent her son away. I didn’t pay any particular attention to this, but when he came back, I almost started crying. In his hand were these two baby goats pictured below, and I held them. I am tearing up a bit thinking about this moment. Everyone who was present were all smiling and laughing at me, but there was also this sense of joy in the air. Through my love of goats, I felt connected with everyone, and they all kept telling me to take a goat as we left. I should’ve taken a goat.<\/em><\/p>\n

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    My heart has never been so full.<\/p><\/div><\/li>\n

  2. Inner Turmoil.<\/strong> The communities I had a chance to interact with are not at the top of the social ladder, but you wouldn\u2019t know that based on how they act. I met some of the kindest people who showed me love and compassion. Men would constantly ask us if we wanted lunch or would hold the door for us as we entered our cars; women would be quick to offer us chai\/snacks whenever we entered their homes and showed Maya and I motherly love. When individuals would tell us stories of their misfortunes\/trauma, my heart ached, but it was quickly filled with joy and happiness by something else. In these moments, I would feel conflicted on how I should act or feel.\n

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    A smile that distracted you from Dinesh’s dirty shirt that he has worn for a week now.<\/p><\/div><\/li>\n

  3. My Privilege.<\/strong> When young me would visit India, my source of comfort for dealing with the immense poverty surrounding me was the fact that I would leave. Now, I understood that it is a privilege, one that I am not happy about. I hated leaving people\u2019s homes after they would detail their hardships for us. Even though I felt a little bit better because our interviews would help them in the future, I didn\u2019t like how I would withdraw from these communities, and subsequently India, to return back to my comfortable lifestyle here in America. Towards the end, I felt so guilty wanting to come back home, craving my big bed and burritos. To be honest, I am not proud to admit this at all.\n

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    Here, I am directing a woman on how I want her to hold a card for when I take a photo using my iPhone 7.<\/p><\/div><\/li>\n

  4. My Support System.<\/strong> Bless Maya\u2019s soul. There is not that many people who I could live with for two months while completing a project that was emotionally-draining at times. I don\u2019t think I could ever describe how comforting she was at times. \u00a0Sometimes her presence was enough for me. As well, the team members of Awaaz.De supported both of us through our project, both mentally and physically. Special shoutout out to Drishty and Anamika from the Engagement team! Drishty became our mother while Anamika was our cool older sister. I miss those two dearly and hopefully, I will see them both very soon.\n
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    Anamika’s First Field Visit!<\/p><\/div>\n

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    My partner for life<\/p><\/div>\n

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    Drishty Madaam yelling at Maya and I for some reason.<\/p><\/div><\/li>\n

  5. My Future.\u00a0<\/strong>Despite this blog post being about reflecting our time from summers, I feel as if I am still in that process, and I don’t think I will ever be capable of doing so. I have always felt guilty about my immense privileges, not just in India but also here in America. When I was young and would witness the many social inequalities, I always accepted those realities as something I couldn’t fix. Truth is, I can never fix them. But I can at least do something about them, and I saw a group of individuals who are doing that right now in India. From Awaaz.De to the organizations we visited, there were a group of change makers who were doing something.\u00a0Through this summer experience, I realized that I want to work in the Indian social sector. I may never be able to explain fully why that is my calling, but I want to help make India a better place for all of its residents. For that, I owe the Miller Center everything for helping me visualize it.\n

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    Posing for the camera.<\/p><\/div><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Whenever anyone asks me about my time in India, I always chuckle and explain how I can never describe it to give it the full I use words as amazing and great, but my experience was not all just fun … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1728,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"qubely_global_settings":"","qubely_interactions":"","kk_blocks_editor_width":"","_kiokenblocks_attr":"","_kiokenblocks_dimensions":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"gutentor_comment":0,"qubely_featured_image_url":null,"qubely_author":{"display_name":"nvemireddy","author_link":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/nvemireddy\/author\/nvemireddy\/"},"qubely_comment":0,"qubely_category":"Uncategorized<\/a>","qubely_excerpt":"Whenever anyone asks me about my time in India, I always chuckle and explain how I can never describe it to give it the full I use words as amazing and great, but my experience was not all just fun … Continue reading →","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/nvemireddy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/nvemireddy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/nvemireddy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/nvemireddy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1728"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/nvemireddy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/nvemireddy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/nvemireddy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions\/48"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/nvemireddy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/nvemireddy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/nvemireddy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}