So I’m back at Penn now, and have been for a month. Sometimes summer in India seems like an odd, if vivid sort of dream. Real life is surely not quite so chaotic, so colourful, or so crazy.

The last large project we did before we left India was working on I-gate, a web portal for the facilitation of B2B trade among STSC MSMEs in the country, spearheaded by one of DICCI’s partners. I-gate is still a nascent idea, and our work mostly involved planning the design, features and implementation of the portal. It’s always interesting to apply a theoretical framework to a real problem (and see how well it holds up) and we had a lot of opportunities in this project. We performed almost every strategic analysis in the book, from Porter’s Five Force analysis to a Feasibility study and even applied a little bit of Game Theory. We also worked on strategizing the implementation of I-gate, which involved everything from researching potential partners to deciding which state the portal would first launch in.

Unfortunately our time at DICCI was up before we could see our plans for Igate move toward becoming reality, but I’m looking forward to seeing how it all turns out in the future. Honestly though, by Week 9.5 after our internship, I can safely say that both Sarah and I only had the idea of home and Penn in our minds. Thoughts of Rajput Dairy turned to thoughts of  Wawa, samosas lost their favour. I left with highly mixed feelings on a rainy Saturday night.

Looking back then, with rose tinted glasses:
– Food food food. God I miss the food. I’ve lost weight here for sure, but please someone give me a bread pakora and chai.
– The cheapness of everything – I nearly cried when I had bhel puri the other day and cried again when I saw it was $7.
– The colours everywhere, especially in the fashion – Ann Taylor Loft insults me with its perpetual grayness as I walk past it everyday. And everyone at Penn seems to have entirely black wardrobes.
– The amazing chaos, Indian standard time, and other assorted facets of Indian bureaucracy: Okay, I don’t miss it. But everything seems absurdly straightforward here. Am I playing on easy mode?
– The Taj Mahal, the Gateway of India, the Ellora caves, the Tung fort, the monsoon rain, the yoga classes, the rickshaws. I really want a wooden rickshaw to put on my bookshelf.
– The memorable friendships with both locals and international interns, and the shenanigans which will not be published on this blog.
– The wonderful, warm DICCI staff, the lunch routine, the chocolate runs in the middle of the workday, the second cake on our farewell day because we all love cake that much.
– I can’t end this list of wonderful things without two huge shoutouts – Aparna and Sarah.

Aparna had basically been rock, lifesaver, confidante, resource and friend all in one – all the way from America (god bless Whatsapp). Sarah and I frequently squeal about how much we adore her. Aparna I know you’re reading this, so
a) You’re the absolute best, really you are
b) Thank you, thank you so much for everything
c) I kind of want to text you throughout the semester too because your support was incredible and I feel a little lost without it.

And Sarah. Well, we’d been together 24×7 for ten weeks. Same job, same room, same commute, same friends. For two very different people who didn’t know each other before this internship, that’s a big deal. We differed on many things – but we also had so many adventures together, laughed so much, had intense debates, ate a ridiculous amount of food, conspired, gossiped, travelled, complained, commiserated and basically lived together. It was awesome. So Sarah, if you’re reading this, thank you so much for showing me a lot of different perspectives to a country and lifestyle I thought I knew. I truly respect you so much.

I was sitting in the Philadelphia sunshine a few weeks later when I realised it was August 15th. The date is a sad irony for me – I left India for the first time and for forever on August 15th 2002, and every year while I wore my saffron, white and green dupatta, I still felt a little further away from the country where I was born.  After this summer, I feel like my connection is renewed. I am excited about the country’s future, and invested in its present. Looking back at my first post just confirms it – I am, and forever will be, in love with India.