On Friday evening I was really looking forward to my relaxing weekend with few plans. It was to be my first weekend in Delhi to just hang out and explore, since I had gone to Amritsar and Varanasi two of the weekends, and the third was Diwali and all of its associated firework madness. I had plan to go shopping, read, maybe hang out by the pool. All of my plans came to a screeching halt when my dinner was interrupted by a phone call telling me I would be traveling to Meerut the following day.
Meerut is a small town located in Uttar Pradesh, one of the states just adjacent to Delhi. Meerut is only 65 km (40 mi) from Delhi, but travel by car takes forever due to poor roads and TRAFFIC. My journey to Meerut took about 3 hours each way. And in typical Indian fashion, it included a few unscheduled stops along the way to pick up food, pick up packages, and drop of people. My return trip even included a stop at my colleague's apartment for coffee and sweets and a viewing of The Pelican Brief. I'm not kidding. Fortunately, I was able to decline his offer of dinner and made it back to my guest house at 9:30pm - 9 hours later!
Despite my annoyance at the journey, the trip was well worth it. In India, I'm working for the GSM Association, who has partnered with several of the Indian wireless companies to launch a product called Shared Phone in rural areas of the country. Shared Phone essentially acts as a mobile pay phone, thereby enabling people to have access to wireless technology without having to bear the cost of a mobile phone. At the same time, the product gives a local entrepreneur the opportunity to run his/her own business. The target audience for the product is the un- or under-employed.
The purpose of our trip was to test the product in the local market, in order to document (and ultimately) correct any problems that currently exist with the product. It's really typical IT project management work, but with a great end result. It was very interesting to see a more rural part of the country, since the bulk of my time has been spent in Delhi or other tourist destinations. And it was even more interesting to meet one of the local entrepreneurs that has bought and will be using this equipment. I get to go back to Meerut on Wednesday to re-test the product and hopefully I will have the chance to meet more Shared Phone users.
I'm back in Delhi now and will reward myself with a leisurely day at the guest house. I plan to read and go for a swim and not think about the fact that I had to work on Saturday!
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