thts Kadambari(missing) and me!
thts Nikita and Mukund!
This is about the
Blogger meet held in New Delhi on Sunday, 12 July 2009.
It was a lazy Sunday afternoon when i was in two minds about going to CP for the "Blogger's Meet" which i estimated would be attended by not more than 3 people! (Kadambari, Mukund and me). Although I had assured Kadambari convincingly of my presence and had even actively publicised the event here I was thinking of a convincing excuse to excuse myself from meeting 2 strangers 30 kms away in scorching heat. I decided to skip calling Mukund (an angel guy who'd drive me in his yaan to CP). To my surprise Mukund called himself to fix the time and location from where he'd pick me up. Being a bad lier I couldn't come up with a nice excuse and half-heartedly schemed the trip.
Mukund, an engineering graduate was an angel indeed. A cool suave guy with less attitude and more sense. He was interesting to talk to and both of us didn't get bored. We exchanged our views and experiences. We picked up Kadmbari from South Ex outside the McD's, she was amicable and talkative. With her in the car it was three of us chirping continuously like birds on a tree. Lil' did I know that this chirping would only end when we'd depart.
Kadambari, Mukund and me reached the McD at CP full 40 mins before the scheduled time, it didn't act as a deterrent to our continuous chirping. Soon (to my surprise!) Ajay, Nikita and Prabhjot also turned up for the meet. It was now 6 of us who were combing the CP area for a CCD to accommodate us and our continuous chirping. Our "Sankat Six" ran into trouble when our combing operation turned into 'search and keep searching operation' for a CCD which after much sweat and afternoon walk was found a stone's throw distance from the origin of our combing operation (of course we took the wrong direction!).
By the time CCD greeted us our introductions/inhibitions were done with. Personal and Professional details had been extracted and processed. CCD was the Round-2 of our "meet"! What followed was something i think no one of us anticipated. All of us were so engrossed and comfortable with one another that it was hard to remind ourselves that just an hour before we were complete strangers and would have crossed each others path without even giving a second look. Here we were like a close knit childhood friends always chirping and chirping, rarely feeling out of place or out of words.
Each one of us was unique and interesting. Kadambari spilled the beans of Nikita doing a personality profiling on all of us and the whole CG of the meet shifted to Nikita. All of us started feeling like specimens in a lab pinned on a wall and being observed by a lab coat wearing psychologist! We had our reveng for feeling like this by bugging her to say something *anything* about us and her observations and analysis about each one of us! (Due to personal reasons my personality profiling will not be discussed!! )
Ajay never ran out of his stories and when the chirping mill was running low he would take charge and fire his extraordinary adventurous stories. His 200-match-losing-streak story, his haryana-wedding-documentary-story, his-many-blogs-story, his-dry-region-story, his career-and-exams-story et al. All his stories are stored in the back of my head like a tape-recorder.
Kadambari was never at a loss of words. The only one to order hot coffee always cheered the spirit of the meet and encouraged everyone to speak and participate. No-one tried to dominate the discussion which made the meeting so comfortable. Kadambari would never fail to come up with funny one-liners and witty jokes which were enough to keep us giggling. I don't know if anybody noticed but we laughed more than we do when we meet strangers like this. Laughter comes so hard in this harsh and cold world. Here we were laughing our hearts out at any trivial joke, at any joke we cracked on each other!
Then there was Prabhjot who in spite of the best efforts of all of us did a Manmohan Singh and remained quiet throughout the meet. Even our psychologist failed to read the personality of Prabhjot but still he couldn't have been shy otherwise he wouldn't have come at all to meet strangers!
After the meet it was Mukund and me who went back to Noida. We again had a lot of time to chat and share our experiences. In the little time we had we developed a great bonding and decided to meet again since both of us stay here in Noida itself. As i walked towards my bike parked in Atta Market I wondered had Mukund not called I would have missed having so much fun and the pleasure of meeting such nice and interesting people!
Sankat Six: Mukund, Me, Kadambari, Prabhjot and Nikita. Ajay is missing as he was taking the pic!
The Sankat Six can be found here (in alphabetical order):
6.Thts ME!!!
