The Pune Blogger meet 2008

I attended the Pune blogger's meet, hosted by Indiblogger and backed by Microsoft, held this Saturday at ( Duh !! ) Pune. To be frank, I only came across it the night before when Preeti messaged me informing that such an event existed. After a lot of should I - shouldn't I, can I- can't I, I finally found the time after a busy baby-delivering night to register via my mob's gutterbrand net connection at 1 am in the morning.

For me, this was a first time. I've never attended a meeting like this ( religious cults don't count, right ? ) and I was pretty nervous. I shouldn't have been. Because once inside the Symbiosis Centre for Distance Learning campus, I realised this wasn't gonna be a tie and suit affair. It was all about being yourself.

Being yourself... isn't that what blogs are all about, after all ?

After a lovely intro by Vineeth, who had taken the initiative to host the event in Pune, the Indiblogger creators ( Renee, Anoop and Anwin - the 3 hunks in the pic ) explained how the concept of Indibloggers was created and their aims and goals.
We were all then invited onstage to showcase and talk a bit on our blogs.. luckily, there were no rotten tomatoes or eggs being sold outside, so I escaped with a typically crappy explanation of my blog ( ummm.. I write better than I orate.. seriously, I do. ) But I got to know quite a few talented Pune bloggers (Prakash Dubey, Karamveer ) from their intros.. funnily enough, I've even read quite a few of their blogs earlier ( Aparajita, Rajeev Rajan ) but had never got back to them in the sea of blogging and work ( oops.. sorry guys and gals ). Karamveer had our eyes popping out with his stats ( 200 sites, February earnings from blog - $ 55k, sold hindilyrics.com last month/year for Rs18 lakh ). I'm still working out a scheme in my head on how to convince him that I could work as a full time anaesthetist for .. umm, his sites ? Hmmm... Yes, I know, I need to work on a different angle to sell myself, huh ? Maybe begging and grovelling at his feet / holding "Pick me, KV" placards outside his window would be a better idea.. that last plan depends on whether he has armed guards and dobermen inside his house or not.

I also finally met Preeti who, like her blog, is a gem of a human being and a deserved blog-celeb. Uncharacteristically shy to come onstage to talk of her blog, when she was eventually goaded on, she just had to start with "Hi, I'm amotheroftwo..." Preeti, if you could hear the "hey, that's her" / "Woah, that's her"/ "Wow"/ "cool" that pervaded the atmosphere in that room, you'd know the term "celeb-blog" fits you like a tee.

Dinner at 6pm was unlimited pizzas and Coke ( thank you Microsoft... umm, is this coming out of my next Vista Premium bill ?" ). Everyone really loosened up and chatted freely with each other... I found out there are actually people who've read my blog ( and all this time, I just thought it was me refreshing my page 23,700 times in 2 years..) But seriously everyone, I'd appreciate it if all you hunks and babes would comment when you stop by, anything, just so that I know you've been to my site.

Anyway, an impromptu skit on blogging( they gave me a no speaking part - I swear, these guys are smart ) and a demonstration of LiveWriter by Sandhya followed.
The vote of thanks, too early by far, followed and we all parted, happy to have been there, sad to leave.
Thank you Vineeth, Indiblogger team & Sandhya( Microsoft ) for this fun event, for taking the trouble, for hosting it brilliantly... and for finally giving me the chance to say this...
"I came, I saw , I got the T-shirt !!!!"

Afterlude :
This is in no way related to the above event... just something I wanted to share. I and my co-docs were having our dinner later that night ( Yes, I had dinner EVEN after mooching all that pizza.. why do you think I asked for the XL t-shirt, guys ). A new place near my hospital, it was quite fancy by my locality standards ( valet parking out here ? Woah.. we used to be lucky to have no-fly soups ). I was still high from my experience at the meet, and my co-partner was celebrating one year in Pune ( by God, I've finished one year myself.. unbelievable. To think, I thought Godyears would die with my arrival here and the workload. ) Anyway, there we were, enjoying the good life, when the phone rang. It was from the hospital. My co-doc picked it up and spoke. It was from his roommate, a paediatrician-to-be. After speaking, he cut the line and told us " That was N. He called to ask that since we were eating at a restaurant, could he have my tiffin ?"
I asked "Why, isn't one tiffin enough for him ? Where does it all go ? He's as thin as a stick insect !!"
"It isn't for him. There's a man in the paediatric ward whose child died today of heart failure. He hasn't eaten anything since 24 hours. N just wanted to give him something to eat."

Sometimes you need to follow your heart. I've spoken earlier on the need to be impersonal while being a doc, but you know what... this is the kind of person I want to be. God willing ( are you listening up there, lazybones ), some day I will be.