The Great Indian Chai Internship: A tea-riffic internship experience with my father
About the author: Parul Gopal, an Archaeology student from Allahadad, recounts her experience of participating in The Great Indian Chai Internship, a two-day internship with experts from tea brands.
“Anything and everything can be made possible with a cup of tea” is the motto of our house. So when I learned about the “The Great Indian Chai Internship”, I was instantly attracted to apply for it. Even though I could not find out much about the internship except for the fact that it was going to be a two-day internship wherein we would get a glimpse into the world of tea, I was still intrigued. The internship would include learning about what all goes behind creating the tea packet that we use everyday and picking a chai buddy of your choice. The latter, picking a chai buddy, was the major reason why I wanted to intern as I know how much my dad loves tea and I was certain that interning together would be a memory that we would cherish forever. I told my father about the internship and he asked me to go for it without a second thought.
While applying for the internship, I answered generic questions such as ‘Why should we hire you?’ along with internship-specific questions such as ‘Why do you consider yourself a chai lover and what is your bond with chai?”. Since this was my first internship experience, I found it a little difficult to answer the common questions. So, I recalled some experiences wherein I had been praised by my teachers and made a case for being hired. On the other hand, I enjoyed writing a candid response for the chai-related question. Similarly, in the interview round conducted by Internshala’s team, I was not certain about the appropriate way to answer questions. However, on the next day, I received an email from Internshala about the selection of my chai buddy (my father) and me.
Over a span of two days, we had multiple one-on-one sessions with founders and leaders of VAHDAM, Chaayos, and Tea Trunk. During these interactions, we got an insight into the inner workings of these companies and got an opportunity to answer all our queries. I learned about various aspects of tea making and tea business that I had never even thought of. The tea-blending masterclass with Tea Trunk founder, Snighdha Marchanda was tremendous fun as I never knew that blending tea can be so scientific. After all the sessions with the employers, we had a game session with the Internshala team. It was a fun session which tested my knowledge of tea and my chai buddy.
Calling the internship a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity would be underrating it as how many children can even dream of interning with their father during their first internship? None! However, in my case, this undreamable dream came to life and all thanks to Internshala for that. Both of us really enjoyed our internship and made memories to look back to.
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