Week 8: Last Week!
As the eight week of my week at ICRISAT dawned, there was a sudden hum of new voices in the canteen. I’ve always prided myself on someone who has had the opportunity to meet people who have lived very different lives from me and this week was truly one where I got to experience camaraderie, new lessons, and moments of friendship outside of my bubble.
My first week here was marked by settling into the quiet environment of the ICRISAT campus, but my second week allowed me to see those boundaries suddenly expand to include a global community. Almost overnight, the quiet sanctuary I had grown used to transformed into a vibrant, buzzing hub. The shift was brought on by the start of the ISSCA-ITEC International Training Course on Fostering Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Agriculture for Sustainable Development.
Our campus became host to researchers, professors, and agricultural academics from twenty four different countries. Instead of reading about global agricultural issues on a screen, I was sharing my afternoon chai with the very people tackling them on the ground. To my left, someone would be breaking down public sector policy; to my right, another would be explaining the intricacies of private sector supply chains. Hearing about their challenges and work life made the sheer scale of global agriculture feel real and tangible. It was incredibly cool to just sit in the training hall and listen to the expert lectures, discuss among others, and have mentor figures become my peers.
Among this incredible crowd, I found myself forming unexpected but meaningful friendships, especially with Amanda from Dominica and Musa from Algeria. Both of them have been navigating the professional world for much longer than I have, carrying with them incredible, established careers and lifetimes of rich experience that I am only just beginning to chase. Sitting together between training sessions, they generously shared the realities of their homes. Amanda spoke of the vibrant island culture of Dominica, while Musa painted a vivid picture of life and community in Algeria.
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Listening to them, I learned how their unique environments — such as the climates they grew up in, the cultural traditions tied to their local foods, and the specific environmental hurdles of their regions — completely shaped their perspectives on farming and sustainability. Their work wasn’t just a career path, but it was actually deeply personal and rooted in a profound respect for their homelands. It was so inspiring to realize that their diverse lived experiences didn’t just influence how they worked in agriculture, but entirely defined the direction of their work and why they did it.
That sense of interconnectedness was brought to life physically when our entire cohort of trainees went on a comprehensive tour of the institute’s specialized research facilities. We started at the Charles Renard Analytical Laboratory. Walking into the meticulously organized space, I watched scientists explain their process of dissecting soil and water samples into nutritional profiles. We also visited the ICRISAT Insect Museum, where they have more than 200k+ species preserved. From there, we moved to the Agribusiness and Innovation Network. It was so inspiring to see how the data gathered in the labs is actively transformed into viable commercial enterprises that directly empower local farmers to build sustainable livelihoods.
This week wasn’t entirely confined to on campus work and visits. Over the weekend, the other trainees and I got to go on a trip to Ramoji Film City. Spanning a staggering 2,000 acres, Ramoji actually holds the Guinness World Record for the largest integrated film studio complex in the world. We wandered through colossal and incredibly detailed sets, including the palatial structures, temples, and live exotic animals. Away from the formal training sessions, trainees and I shared stories about our lives back home, admired our surroundings, and I grew incredibly close to people I had only just met days prior.
Within the fun chaos of Film City, we stopped for lunch and I was introduced to the phenomenon of Indo-Chinese cuisine. As a Chinese American who grew up eating the traditional staples of my family’s cooking, I naturally had a very specific nostalgic palate for Chinese food. Experiencing these familiar dishes reimagined through the lens of Indian culinary tradition was a savory experience. The stir-fries and noodles tasted of the comforting elements of soy sauce and garlic but were also layered with the heat of traditional Indian spices, robust masala, and rich curry bases. It was a collision of cultures and it felt like a beautiful paradox on a plate as something intimately familiar to my childhood, yet entirely new and wonderfully distinct.
Reflecting on the sheer density of these past few days in the brilliant friends I’ve made, the incredible journey from soil labs to movie sets, and the unexpected comfort of a fusion meal, I am overwhelmed with gratitude. I came to India to learn about agricultural economics and contribute to the ongoing policy research globally, but I am quickly realizing that the most profound lessons are happening in the quiet spaces in between: in the shared laughter across a lunch table with friends from across the globe, in the awe of a sprawling movie set, and in the realization of how beautifully interconnected our world truly is.
