Being a Fellow is exhilarating, experimental and full of challenges and changes. While this is an experience I will continue to reflect and learn from over the years to come, this blog is part one of a two part series capturing a set of personal lessons I learned over my 10 months as a Fellow.
Arriving in Ranchi
On October 15, 2022, I landed at a quaint airport in the north-eastern region of India. I had never been anywhere in India other than Chennai and Bangalore. I got out of a plane with one of those stairs attached to the plane arrangement. I had a carry on and a backpack reminding me of my move back to my motherland after a decade. As I stepped out of the plane, I was hit with humidity and a view of how far the city lines of Ranchi, a small city and home to the Cricket God of India, M.S.Dhoni, reached.
As I was waiting to pick up my checked bag, I tried to use the bathroom. It had four stalls and a line around the block and was definitely not as well maintained as I would have liked it to be. The reality sinking in just enough to unsettle me : What am I doing here? I was here for a fellowship, an experience that would allow me to work alongside rural women to build an enterprise for them. What’s not to love about that, especially because it has been my dream since I decided to become an international development professional.
As I made my way back to the baggage area, I felt prying eyes on me. Is it that obvious that I am new to the city? I struggled to get this bag off the carousel.- I thought I packed light, but how could you when you have to move your life to the opposite side of the world in one suitcase. I felt excited, nervous, and I felt uncertain as with any novel experience. With all my belongings intact, I made my way to meet my driver who was arranged for me through the organization I would be spending the next nine months with. On the phone, I heard the driver’s calm voice (exactly what I needed), in Hindi though which I have not spoken in 15 years. I know four words: “hello” and “how are you”. Yet, I responded to him in English hoping he would understand.
He arrived and I felt relaxed though momentarily in the car. “Lunch ke liye kahan jaana hai, Madam? (Where would you like to go for lunch, Madam?) He asked. Take me to KFC, I responded. I ate a Vegetarian Zinger meal for lunch everyday for the first week I was in Ranchi. Both my driver and KFC were a pocket of comfort in the midst of transition.
Starting Work
The first three months were tough. I was in a new environment with not enough resources, having to build a new life from scratch, searching for a place to call home, building my professional relationships and personal community and in a culture that I somewhat understood being raised by immigrant parents but still did not always understand their ways being diasporic and distant. I felt overwhelmed and lonely, and very quickly realized that I would need to develop some skills and a support system to help me grow through the journey.
Life in Ranchi was different. I was getting acquainted with a new workplace and work culture. My morning commute to the office involved taking a shared auto with the community. During lunch breaks, we would share our food, take walks, drink chai, munch on some jhalmuri (a savory snack) and discuss matters of family, food, and current events. Laundry was entirely by hand and boy, was it a good workout. Amidst that here I was, committing 10 months of my life to this project and things were definitely not shaping up to be what I expected. I was torn. What am I doing here? Why am I here? At my workplace, I felt very different from the people around me. Especially during the trust building phase, it was challenging to communicate and gauge gaps in vision alignment across stakeholders. But on the other hand, I had spent countless hours meeting with rural women in their villages understanding their day to day lives, fears, challenges and connecting with their families. My dream.
Emotional Ambivalence
To add to it, the internal voices were conflicting and loud. Should I stay or should I go? A question that became pertinent during months four to six of my fellowship journey – the most challenging leg of the Fellowship. I was torn. It felt uncomfortable. Emotional Ambivalence, I learned. I have always had a way of making meaning of the world from a psychological and spiritual lens. Emotional Ambivalence is the state of having simultaneous and contradictory feelings and attitudes towards an object, person or concept (Harvard Business Review, 2021). Some say it is detrimental to the well being of a human and some say it is the foundation for growth. As the name suggests, probably a bit of both, but in my case, it was the catalyst for change and discovering my values. My first lesson was building emotional resilience, exactly the skill I needed to grow through the experience.
My ambivalence was at its peak when I was asked to present my work to a group of people who were well
wishers of the Fellowship. On one hand, I was excited to be flying to a new city, meeting some influential individuals, and presenting the work I was doing. But on the other hand, I felt anxious and uncertain of how things were going to unfold at my host organization and that the progress on my project might be impeded. Will things get better? Did I make the right decision by choosing this opportunity? What if I don’t achieve the results I set out to? Things are definitely not going as per plan. And the most important of them all, how do I present my work when things are not going as I expected them to? Am I expected to portray my experience as a victor’s tale?
As uncomfortable as it was, I sat with those feelings. Underlying those feelings were fears and wants that were fighting for my attention. My second lesson in emotional resilience. As I addressed my fears and wants with this situation, I realized that what I do does not represent who I am. In fact, I valued a healthy distance with my work which in some ways allowed me to show up better for the role I had chosen. The reality was that both parts – the one struggling with anxiety and the one confidently presenting to an audience – were both true of my experience. To accept both parts, I had to let go of the idea of work being my identity and make space for healthy distance and a more expansive experience of myself and my work. Acceptance: my third lesson in emotional resilience.
Validation
The next day I was off to Dehradun, near the foothills of the Himalayas. What a great way to get some peace, what I desperately needed from this anxiety I was feeling. I was also reuniting with my co-fellows
after a three month period. We were going to be trekking and exploring the region quite a bit. There were so many pent up emotions and so much to share. I felt a sense of relief when I saw the fellows. And to no one’s surprise, some of us were feeling the same way. Why were we here? This is so hard. We didn’t feel like we belonged at our host sites. We didn’t feel valued for our perspectives and experiences. Are we letting down our communities if we don’t achieve what we set out to? Many of our expectations were meeting the harsh ringer of reality, the tension was palpable. Yet, through all of this, I felt supported. At least I was not alone and somehow, I started developing the hope that things would work out even if it was not easy and began cultivating gratitude for the aspects of my experience that were exactly what I wanted. Embracing uncertainty: choosing curiosity over the fear of not knowing what could happen. This was my fourth lesson in emotional resilience, and it freed me up to experience things for what they were and explore creative approaches to achieving my goal.
At this point, it felt apt to get the much needed distance from my work projects and allow space for reflection, reconfiguration and integration. I was still left with two pressing questions: What opportunities am I not seeing? What are the most effective ways to manage this change?
Click here to read part 2 of the blog series.
Works Cited
Rothman, Naomi. “Embracing the Power of Ambivalence.” Harvard Business Review, 14 Sept. 2021, https://hbr.org/2021/09/embracing-the-power-of-ambivalence.
