Uttar Pradesh. One town a day.

The joy of returning to Delhi was short lived. Or make that not lived. :-(

Spent the weekend looking for a paying guest accommodation, as the ones i had contacted from paradeep were real opportunists, who realised that they had desperate customers who needed a place, and quick. The fact that it was only for a month added to their demands. 15 days rent as commission, for a months lease, to double rent, were the offers i was forced to reject, and the search began anew at the various property websites.

Finding a paying guest accomodation or for that matter,any accommodation is made easy by 99acres.com etc. :-)

A refined search resulted in a few more leads, one of which though far from ideal was acceptable, clean and inexpensive. :-)

Moved in on sunday, and reported to work on monday, to be informed that i will be travelling all of UP with the team undertaking trade promotion activities. The schedule read, muzzafarnagar, saharanpur, moradabad, lucknow, barreilley, agra and mainpuri, all to be covered in eight days. The vagabond existence, means we complete a meet, pack, travel a few hours by road, sleep, wake unpack, meet, pack . . . . . And the cycle repeats.

Off to Lucknow tonight, four locations to go, before i return to spend time in the market with the sales teams.

Another week has passed, slow and steady, with not much happening in the office or otherwise. A quick trip to Bhubaneshwar, for work, was am all new experience on many fronts.

Have traveled in an unreserved compartment, with unreserved tickets, for the first time in my life!

The mba brochures and admissions pitches fail to mention this aspect of field work in the glorified images of corporate India that are sold to the millions of students. :-)

picked up a couple me books at the station, paths of glory and foreign body. Hope to read one tomorrow. Also have plans to wake up real early, and walk to the beach to observe the sun rise. The time at tifr allowed me to enjoy many a sunset, but have witnessed a sunrise only a couple of times.

Have requested rashmi to post her 2 bits here, and she has accepted to do so. Post time. :-)

When i got to know that i will be spending a month in orissa, i had decided that weekends will not be spent in the guest house, but travelling. I wanted to visit all the tourist destinations here before i am done with the plant stint. Unfortunately the plant works six day weeks, so the only free day is sunday.

This sunday, vinit and i visited the nandankanan zoo. The zoo boasts of the largest population of white tigers in the country, and also a lion and white tiger safari. The zoo is great but maintenance could have been a lot better. Will write a guide to Puri, Konark, Paradeep and Nandankanan when i get a decent net connection, and do not have to type on my phone. Photos of these places also need to be uploaded.

The safari is overrated, and the tigers and lions are usually asleep at "pre designated" locations even is early as 10am. The temperature levels make most animals prefer the shade of their enclosures to roaming out in the open.

Personally i prefered the hyderabad zoo, where sameer and i incidently got to feed the tigers. Something i will never forget. :-)

Got my first salary from the new job. It feels great to receive a nice cheque. :-)

retail therapy time? Perhaps when i return to delhi. Any recommendations?

Work as usual, tickets to return to gurgaon are nearly done, and i should be there on use 15th. As gurgaon is my reporting office, i will need to make arrangements 4 my accomodation, so if any one knows a pg or place available for rent for a month, please contact me.

Reading, winning by jack welch. Nice read. :-)recommended to all who work, or lead teams etc.

Listening to an assortment of The Who, the dorrs, metallica and pink floyd. :-)

watching season four of house. Fantastic.

Done with all the five seasons of the black adder.seasons one to four are Rowan Atkinson's best. By far. Relived the good old days when i used to watch this on star plus. 1992 i think it was.

A good net connection should see me upload a bunch of pics to my web album.