Summer Internship with GCPL — Apurva from Indian Institute of Foreign Trade Delhi

Daily winner for: –  2nd September 2012

Name of the intern: –  Apurva

Institute: – Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Delhi

Organization interned with: –  GCPL

The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary describes an internship as a period of time during which a student or new graduate gets practical experience in a job, for example during the summer holiday/vacation: quite a dull way to describe one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life. My two month summer internship was a journey that took me across the length and breadth of the country. 60 days, 7 cities, 14 plane journeys, numerous hours on the road in all means of transport ranging from taxis to tempos, and countless interactions with consumers representing the diversity of the Indian diaspora, this experience has acquired a prime place in the chronicles of my life.

Let me give you a brief background of how it all started. On 9th April 2012 three dozen interns descended in the headquarters of one of the most successful Indian companies from various prestigious Indian B-Schools. Excitement was palpable in the air. After a three day induction which went a long way in breaking the ice amongst interns we were assigned our respective projects. My project excited me from the beginning. My guide told me that it would require a bit of travel and a lot of consumer interaction. Being an explorer and a curious observer of humanity, I was thrilled to know that I would be travelling far and wide to gauge consumer response to the product that had been assigned to me. I, being a fresher who had never worked before or travelled alone to unknown cities, was excited and a bit apprehensive at first. But after seeing the warm welcome I received from the consumers of the first city I visited the apprehension gave way to anticipation to travel to the next city, to interact with the next set of people.

I have had a highly cocooned upbringing where even to travel in my own city I had a car at my disposal at all times and so travelling in shared tempos, rickshaws and local buses was a completely new experience for me which I embraced it willingly. This was the first time in my life that I was in unknown cities without anyone watching over me, I stayed in hotels alone, was responsible for charting the course of each day from my working hours to my mode of transport to my meals. I was completely on my own. Also this was the first time that I was visiting consumers of Socio Economic Classifications (SEC) B and C and to tell the truth I was enjoying every bit of it. It was a completely new experience for me and I loved each day of it. I travelled to Mumbai, Lucknow, Amritsar, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Chennai and Pune. I travelled alone to the airport at three in the night, a scary experience for a girl who was on her own for the first time.

My days were spent travelling from one respondent’s house to another in the narrow by lanes abuzz with the chatter of tiny toddlers, the call of fish sellers, braying of cattle, horns and screams of cyclists and motorbikes. Cars were hard to find in these narrow lanes inhabited by warm hearted and highly hospitable semi-urban and lower middle class people. From Mumbai’s chawls to old parts of Kolkata city, I interacted with close to 200 respondents. I interacted with people of different religions, embracing different lifestyles, speaking in different tongues and often had to resort to the help of translators to make myself understood. My experiences range from interacting with the wife of a machuara (fisherman), talking to a tailor in a ramshackle Mumbai chawl, listening to a Police Commissioner’s wife in police barracks, to a halwai in his sweetshop. In every city I was welcomed into the homes of respondents with open arms. I was lovingly offered lassi, matthis, cold drinks, halwas and any other delicacy that has been prepared in the house by my respondents. I was flattered by the hospitality that these people showered on a strange girl who had come to interview them and whom they would probably never meet again. For that half an hour of interactions most of the respondents went all the way to make me fell welcomed and comfortable. A consumer interaction requires the surveyor to put the respondent at ease and engage them in conversation rather than asking pointed questions and as I result bonded with a lot of my respondents.

During these interactions I came across feisty Punjabi girls who wanted to know who I was, where I lived, what I was doing and every small detail of my life, to grandmothers who resembled the dominating patriarch of the popular movie Jab We Met. I was egged my concerned housewives to carry an umbrella to protect my pale complexion, was referred to as an “Angrezi madam” by a youth in a shanty who called out to his mother “Arrey mummy angrezi madam tumse baat karne ayi hain.” I played with and cuddled the children of the housewives, heard their stories, lived a day of their lives. I was touched by the housewives and how they have dedicated their lives to their families by suppressing their dreams and aspirations to ensure that their loved ones are cared for at all times. I met entrepreneurial women who while looking after their children and caring for their husbands had found a way to pursue their hobbies of jewellery making, embroidery, cooking, tailoring, teaching, etc. The travel and interaction with people I would have hardly ever dreamt of talking to taught me a lot.

I understood how important it is to keep the consumers happy and in the whole process learnt about the importance of all elements of marketing ranging from the TVC of a product to its packaging in making a product successful. These 60 days of internship changed me as a person, I realized that cutting across societal lines and economic barriers every Indian wished to live a life of dignity, wanted to feel beautiful, wished to give their children the best, nurtured dreams and hopes of a better tomorrow and fought with gumption to make each passing day worthwhile. It was an experience I shall always hold close to my heart.

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