Shaira outside Mysore Palace in Mysore, Karnataka (India)

Shaira (on left) with colleague

Week 1: All Sorts of Introductions 
 
Namaste from India! I’m Shaira, a rising junior at Harvard College
studying Economics with a minor in Global Health and Health Policy. In the few free days before starting my summer internship, I nearly forgot I was here—in Bangalore, southern India—to do research on protein intake and pregnancy outcomes at what had been called the Johns Hopkins of India: St. John’s Research
Institute at St. John’s National Academy of Health Sciences. Instead, I at first felt like I was here to survive a video game. If a hole wasn’t burnt through me by the piercing stares I got on the street because I was visibly different, and I wasn’t hit by a car while scattering like a little fish through the tidal waves of traffic (among other unusual circumstances), perhaps I would make it out of here alive. These are the honest chronicles of my experience in India—as a woman, a researcher, and a first-timer.

 * * *
The first thing I learned about India was just how far it really is
from Los Angeles, California (my hometown). You can, of course, trace the path across a map, but the distance means very little until you move the miles yourself. On the afternoon of June 13, I started my journey at the Tom Bradley International Terminal in Los Angeles, California. 

Over the Pacific and the Indian, through Tokyo and Singapore, I
ultimately made it onto my final flight to Bangalore. Ironically, by the time I stepped foot onto the last flight, what was only a four hour ride seemed endless. As we flew over the Bay of Bengal and at last descended onto the subcontinent, I looked out the window at the expansive landmass wondering what it would be like—sand what I had gotten myself into.