India in the Classroom

The India portion of the Summer Institute in Global Health is split into two parts.  The first week was a series of lectures from our program director, Sonia Suchday, two other Einstein-affiliated teaching assistants, Rosy Chhabra and Karel Amaranth, and three St. Xavier’s College psychology professors, Maurine-ma’am, Lucy-ma’am, and Ruby-ma’am.  This upcoming second week will be devoted to collecting data through the handing out of surveys on stress and anger to Xavier’s students, ages 18 and older, and through performing one-to-one interviews.

The picture above is the college itself: a single, extended stone building with wide arches, courtyards, and elegant stain glass windows.  Like a typical old, historical building, there is no AC. 

St. Xavier’s College reminds me strongly of Hogwarts.  There is so much character in its European architecture, even in the way the mold grows, outlining the spires and windowsills of the place in a gothic elegance.  The college is situated directly beside the busy streets of Central Bombay, near Victoria’s Terminal, a similarly extravagant building which acts as a train terminal but actually looks like it should be a British palace.  There is a herbarium inside the school, spiraling stone staircases that lead to dead-ends, and classrooms, one after the other, the right side of the room acting as a hallway in order to provide a means of getting from one area of the college to another.

V.T.: Victoria's Terminus

While getting lost one day, I found myself peeking into one of the ancient-looking biology classrooms where students were using glass pipetters and flasks.  What struck me was that they were also surrounded by ancient skeletons and starfish, salamanders, and hairy creatures floating in glass jars.  It was a fascinating mix of modern and historical science.  Seeing this, I was flooded with a sudden desire to see science flourish, not as a field in which its members are constantly in want of grant money and other funds, but as one that purely searches for the sake of knowledge.  I wanted more of a science that digs up skeletons out of mere curiosity for past life.  A science that studies every inch and habit of strange and incredible species, arising from  a raw desire for understanding and discovery.

Yet, at the same time, I could not help but realize how lucky I am to go to Harvard, a college in America.  Last year, in my Cell Biology class, we were able to utilize the most up-to-date fluorescence microscopes to view cells and even more microscopic cellular components such as actin.  At St. Xavier’s, I doubt that such equipment could be utilized effectively, for in such a humid environment and on the old wooden tables that serve as workbenches, there is a high probability of damage.  Granted, St. Xavier’s is known to be strong in the arts, not science.  (There are three educational sections that students must place themselves into before going to college: arts, commerce, and science). 

This past week, the eight girls in my program joined 24 third-year psychology students in a week-long seminar series in which we learned about how anger and stress can lead to physical health defects such as cardiac vulnerability. Anger is an evolutionary development that results from the fight response.  Yet, as civilization has expanded and people have begun to conform to certain societal norms, anger can no longer be expressed in violence.  Thus, we have begun to develop habits such as rumination or hostile behavior that increase stress on the body.  During the lectures, we also learned about childhood anger, the dangers of youth violence, and the complexities of managing anger.

During this time, we were split into four groups of eight (two American students + 6 Indian students).  I will be working with this group to collect about 125 surveys from Xavier’s students and attempt to perform about 20 interviews during which we collect height, weight, and hip-to-waist ratio measurements and periodically record the blood pressure of a subject while asking him/her to recount a recent stressful experience.  So far, we have handed out all our surveys and are currently inputting the extensive data into an SPSS file. 

 Today is our first day of interviews.  It’ll definitely be an interesting experience to be on the ground, collecting data first-hand as I perform the SCI (Social Competence Interview) on students.

Most of [Group 2: Anger and Terrorism]