It’s been a few weeks since returning from India, but I wanted to wait on this last blog post until I was fully immersed back into Penn. It was an interesting transition, and it casts light onto some of the challenges immigrants face when coming to a new modernized country like the US. Of course, […]

As my summer winds down to a close, there was time for one last trip sightseeing. My grandmother and I went to Ooty, a hill station near Coimbatore, for a day/night trip. The weather was even cooler than in Kodaikanal, between 50 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit. I was comfortable in t-shirt and jeans; it was […]

Nothing captivates the imagination of Indians like the movies. People love movies all around the world, but in India it’s a craze overwhelming with passion. They follow actors like a cult. Rajini is akin to “God” in South India. The raucous cheers and whistles when their favorite actors say an action dialogue blow you away. […]

In a whirlwind of events, the 10-week internship at Aravind Eye Hospital has blown by. With our projects finished up, I can be proud in the work we managed to accomplish this summer. We simultaneously tackled three projects with three different supervisors. Our first project was under Gnana Sir; we were responsible for standardizing performance […]

Last week, Aravind sent Zach, Jane, and me to Pondicherry to observe the Pondicherry Aravind Hospital and meet with upper management. We went to discuss our Shared Medical Appointments project, as well as our Parameters Standardization project, with Dr. Venkatesh, a senior doctor and manager of the Glaucoma Clinic in Pondicherry. It was fascinating being […]

Now that Zach has explained our actual work at Aravind, it’s time for me to continue talking about our traveling. Two weekends ago, Zach, Jane, and I took an extra day off to tour Kerala. Our trip began on a Thursday night (6/13), taking a sleeper bus to Cochin, leaving Madurai at around 9 pm […]

I can’t believe 3 weeks have flown by and we’ve hit the halfway point in week 4. Work is now going in full flight and we’ve had opportunities to travel around Madurai. We went to the Meenakshi Amman Temple, which was amazing. It’s a massive structure, almost like a mini-city. We are trying to eat […]

First of all, super excited to be going to India as part of CASI Aravind! I want to start off by thanking everyone who made this possible. My name is Abhinay Ramachandran, but you can call me Abhi. My family is from a city called Coimbatore, which is a few hours from Madurai, where I […]