It was an eye-opening experience for me. The only international travel I had done before the trip was to England, Belgium and the Caribbean; I had never been to an Asian country.

When we first landed in Delhi and proceeded to baggage claim, I couldn’t help but notice the smell of smoke – not like the pleasant smell of campfire smoke or the smell of wood burning, but more like plastic or garbage burning. It was the kind of harsh smoke smell that urges you to look around to see what has caught on fire as it is unnatural. However, nothing particular in our immediate area was on fire and the smoke smell persisted throughout the whole stay in Delhi. During that time of year, the fog roles into Delhi and combines with the smoke of anything the homeless can get their hands on to burn. At least this was the leading theory amongst our group after a few days.

In the first hour of being in Delhi I learned a lot about the country that was later confirmed in the trip. One, it is common for people to hackle you to buy something or tip them – a common trait of a country with high unemployment or a low-skilled population. Two, India is a developing country with limited infrastructure. Three, there are stark contrasts between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ in India, which was analogous to being one step on either side of the entrance gate to our hotel – the worlds were totally different depending on which side of the gate you were on. Four, given the above three, there is a lot of room for India to grow in the future and they seem to be on the right path towards that growth.

The trip to Agra, the home of one of the wonders of the world, the Taj Mahal, was extremely telling of old-world India, the rural part of India that still is much of the country. The four-hour bus ride passed through small village, after farm, after small village. We saw camels and bulls pulling carriages filled with goods; scaffolding made of bamboo, tied at the joints with rope and stacked high on the sides of buildings; and miles and miles of farmland with rather poor looking people abound.

Thinking about seeing the Taj Mahal from a distance reminds me of seeing Mt. Rainier in that it is a huge, almost out of place, structure surrounded by little else. Seeing the Taj Mahal up-close is like nothing else I have ever seen. The detail of inlayed precious stones in marble is magnificent in a dinner plate and is mind-boggling in something this size. You can easily see why this is a wonder of the world and why something like this will never be duplicated, as not only the resources but also the skills required are too great.

We also met with many institutions while we were there: the United States Educational Foundation in India, the Bombay Stock Exchange, Kotak Investment Bank, Securities and Trading Corporation of India, a Bollywood producer and Merril Lynch’s Private Client Group. I learned a tremendous amount of information about the Indian economy and business climate first-hand from the professionals of the country.

The last few days of our trip we spent in the tropical city of Goa. Goa was our time to relax and enjoy the casual part of India. It is a popular vacation spot and there were many eastern Europeans staying at our hotel with us. The hotel was very nice and I especially enjoyed the bar and pool. Having been located a block or so from the ocean, it was nice swimming in the salt water as well. We also ventured into the city one evening and I enjoyed seeing the market and just sitting at a bar watching a soccer game with the locals. I probably had my best meal at the hotel – a feast of tandoori grilled prawns and grilled snapper.

One of the most important things that I learned about India was that India has a huge population problem. This has lead to high unemployment and a dearth of high-skilled workers. There is also a huge wealth gap with a lot of poor people walking the streets. It will be interesting to see how India deals with the population problem in the future. Although India has these pitfalls, the overall direction of India is positive and it sets up a situation for long-term growth of the country in the future.

It terms of social issues, it was interesting to read about the problems that India has with the relationships between men and women. I saw a lot of stories in the paper about men/women issues. It was also interesting to see a lack of women out in public in Delhi. I saw more in Mumbai, but still the streets were dominated with men.

To conclude, I saw a lot of optimism in the Indian business people. They seem to be very hard-working people. My experiences there have shaped my thinking by making me more aware of the emergence of the Indian economy. It has also made me very interested to see how India develops on my many fronts such as the attitudes towards women, the build-up of infrastructure throughout the country, and the overall market there for equities and debt. Now that I have traveled to India and met with business leaders, I have a much better understanding of articles on India that I read in publications such as the Wall Street Journal. I have a much different perspective now when seeing anything that pertains to India, such as the Indian film I recently watched, as I can relate my experiences now in many ways. More importantly, I can draw on these experiences as a business professional in my future career.