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The India Immersion Tour
Thursday, 22 March 2018
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Chaos. The culture. Colour. The slums. Poverty. The dreaded ‘Delhi Belly'. These are some of the phrases that come to mind when one thinks about India. While some people could think of nothing worse, for the 100+ students who have taken part in the School's India Immersion Programme over the past 10 years, their experiences have been overwhelming, immensely positive and awe-inspiring. An idea conceived by Associate Headmaster Ben Skeen from his trip to India as a Form 6 student, the biennial tour is designed for senior students to experience the culture and history of the country, and gives an opportunity to develop personal leadership skills. In Ben's words, it was his way of giving back and saying thanks. "We all need to be challenged; to be taken beyond our comfortable existences to places that are full of contrast, culture and colour. Becoming immersed in such spaces allows us to reflect on who we are, where we are going, what matters most. Taking a group back and facilitating an influential experience of this nature was an absolute privilege." Following in Ben's footsteps are two Old Boys who have returned from their third trip to India as the lead staff members, having both experienced the programme as students. Reuben McGregor-Sumpter and Tom Rapson (both from the class of 2009) had very similar reactions to being in India for the first time. Reuben was in Form 7 and hoped to find some answers about himself and of life. "I didn't have a grasp of where I wanted to be and what I wanted to do. I was naïve in thinking that I could find all these answers, but I realised no one has all the answers and I had matured by learning to accept this. I had grown more comfortable with not knowing." It was his return from this trip when Reuben was approached by Ben, who made him an offer he simply couldn't pass up. "I was asked to be a staff member on the 2015 programme - for the 2017 trip, it was made clear Tom and I would be leading it. Ben told us to think about this opportunity, but I knew straight away I couldn't say no. My first trip to India was an incredibly formative experience, and I feel like it was an honour and a privilege to keep this opportunity going." Tom was two years younger when he journeyed to India in Form 5, a trip he found hard to put into words. "It's difficult to describe a reaction, India provokes such a range of emotions. I remember returning home with an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for what I had, the education and experiences I had enjoyed, and yet a sense of guilt that so many others would never have the same." Tom's outlook of each of the three trips has also changed. "The first trip was about my own experience, trying to see, do and learn as much as I could. The second was more about facilitating an entire group's experience but also to learn from Ben about how to run the programme! On the 2017 trip, that responsibility was much wider, with considerations like safety, the boys' welfare and contact with their parents becoming much greater." The 22 students on the most recent tour were a mixture of Form 5, 6 and 7 students - including seven Prefects from the 2018 cohort - each with their own tales and stories to tell, from visiting the slums of Kolkata to the beautiful town of Darjeeling; a favourite for both Reuben and Tom. "It was the first time the Immersion Programme had ever been to Darjeeling," Tom told us. "We went up to a spot called Tiger Hill and watched an incredible sun rise over Mt Everest and Kanchenjunga, the third tallest mountain in the world." Reuben was quick to agree. "Given it was somewhere we hadn't been before, it didn't feel like the India we had travelled to in the past; it was a lot cleaner and the air was easier to breathe. I'm proud Tom and I were able to add in that leg of the trip, so the boys could see another side of the country." One of the biggest highlights of the trip was meeting so many different people from different walks of life. One example was the group's arrival to the rural village of Saraswatipur, home to 6,000 people who live off the local tea economy, where men work in the tea factory and women work in the fields. The reception and the generosity the group received has stayed with Tom. "We arrived to a crowd of children, one of whom was wearing a Grammar Hockey jersey from years gone by, and received a proper welcome ceremony. We were blessed with incense, doused in flower petals, had our forehead painted with a tilaka, and received a mala (a flower necklace, similar to a lei). Two men then emerged with enormous drums and all the local girls linked arms in song and danced us into our night's accommodation, the village church." However, the trip didn't come without its fair share of trials, in the form of ‘sickness' updates from the daily blog entries. This included Tom, who had managed to avoid Delhi Belly on his two previous jaunts to India, but was violently hit with it this time around, something the students - and Reuben in particular - took great delight in! Another major hurdle was a last-minute cancellation - with no replacement offered - to an overnight train from Siliguri to Varanasi, but Reuben and Tom battled on and were able to organise a bus - "if you have enough money, anything is possible in India!" Unfortunately, what should have been a relatively leisurely 17-hour train ride turned into quite a bumpy 24-hour bus ride. But like true Grammar men, Reuben confirmed that "as a group the boys were incredible - positive almost the entire way (the last few hours were, admittedly, awful) - and we all soldiered through it." With preparations already underway for the 2019/2020 trip, both could not speak more highly of it and would recommend it to every student, with Reuben confirming that everyone gets something different out of the tour. "The trip isn't built for one person, and you'll see that in the people selected; everyone is there for different reasons." Tom agreed, while saying that the programme effects different people in different ways. "For me, it was far and away the most formative and influential experience of my life. To play a role facilitating the programme has been an absolute privilege and a huge point of development for me. India is a place so vast but fundamentally different to home, it has to be seen to be believed and understood."  The iconic Taj Mahal in all its glory, taken by Prefect and the leader of the Media group, Matt Illing  Another great photo from Matt shows Miller Hawkesby (in dark t-shirt) with a group of students in Saraswatipur  Some of the kids the students met while on the India Immersion Tour  The entire group outside the New Zealand High Commission during their trip to India |