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. :-)

Paradeep. 15 days down.

It has been an eventful fortnight since my last post, and the fact that i am using my phone and mail to post this is largely due to a complete lack of a reliable net connection in paradeep.

The 36 hour train journey was... to be generous, boring. slept the entire time, waking up for refreshments in the form of cold, muddy water, that is called tea by the railways. The food in the train was a prelude to the food at paradeep, but we were blissfully unaware.

Were shocked to be put up in a dilapidated building, but were shifted later in the day to the actual guest house. Paradeep as a port, faces a real shortage of clean houses, and i was surprised to learn that rents here are higher than what one would pay in pune for a much larger apartment. 5k+ for a dilapidated apartment, constructed nearly 20 years ago, without proper sanitation is the norm here. Shocked. :-(

as mentioned earlier the food in paradeep, right from restaraunts to the cafe, is in one word, again being generous, horrible. The food in the college cafeteria which we avoided like the plague now seems like nectar, sweet delicious nectar.

Brinjals and potatoes (unpeeled) are the only ingredient that can be identified, and the less said about the taste, or the rotis for that matter the better. Instant noodles and lays are our constant meal supplements.

Undertook a road trip to konark and puri last weekend. Puri was a nice though the touts left me seething.wished i had not entered the temple thanks to these quack priests who harass tourists to no end. Konark was beautiful, and our guide went to great pains to explain every carving on the magnificent temple.

The new toy, the canon a590-is is awesome, and have been pleased with the quality of results and creative satisfaction it provides.

Labor day, means i get a holiday tomorrow. :-) plan to see the sunrise and the confluence of the mahanadi with the bay of bengal.

15 more days in paradeep. The countdown has begun.

The gunners screwed up last night. Man U played well, and almunia saved the day for us.