Showing posts with label BAT Meets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BAT Meets. Show all posts

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Blog-a-Ton Meet @ Pune

Hello Folks,
Allow me to introduce myself. I am Venky. I have recently been baptized into this fascinating world of blogging. I happened to be a part of the First Anniversary Celebrations of Blogaton. Sidhesh, Mahesh, Chetan and I met at SGS Mall, Pune. I wrote a small post about me and the meet. I shall upload the pics soon.


When the climate looks enticing as Salma Hayek, you simply need an excuse to get out. My excuse was: Bloggers Meet at Dorabjee’s. Although I have been blogging for several years, I never felt the drive to shout across the world that I am a blogger.  After all, millions of people in the world were blogging.  I had lazily relegated my blog as a soul-less blog in the Information cornucopia that was overflowing in the Web.  After all Google wouldn’t even know of my existence. Everything seemed okay until I met a farmer.  He walked inside unassumingly as a teacher to teach B2B Marketing. While I sat in his first class, little did I know that this philosopher would wake me up from my slumber and show me the infinite power available in the mother of all networks: World Wide Web. It suddenly felt exciting to be a Blogger. I realized I have been ordained with a divine purpose to exist and spread my ideas in the Web.

 With this new found excitement, I decided go and meet fellow Bloggers in town.Sidoscope, Maheshisms,Smiling Planet and Incorrigible Optimist all came together to celebrate the occasion of first anniversary of Blogaton. We sheepily introduced ourselves by sharing the intimate details of how it all began. It had the same excitement a lover would have when he begins to narrate about his first love. Everyone echoed a sense of fatigue in the world of gravity they knew, you know, the real world as some of us would like to know.  We yearned for a world where we could bend the rules of gravity imposed by the society to chain humans. Web gave all of us a glimpse of this zero-gravity world whose sinews were made of our ideas and our dreams and nothing else. After sharing the first love ( or should I call pupply love) experiences in Dorabjees, we decided to move to SGS Mall to celebrate the first anniversary of Blogaton. We happily devoured the cake along with steaming Momos, while we began to set the floors for discussion. It started with a discussion of spirituality. Much to our amusement, we realized that each of us had a different perspective of the world around us.

 While Mahesh believed in an Objective world which existed at large without the power of network, Sidhesh and I believed in the world, to paraphrase a Quantum Physicist’s famous words, where “I” existed not just as a Noun, but as a Verb. Chetan turned out to be the simple soul who was content to see the little charms of this world.No wonder, his world was a smiling planet. Mahesh’s objective world, Maheshisms, was also concerned with the social conditions which affected our lives. The discussion ranged on a kaleidoscope of issues ranging from Quantum physics, Ramayana, Spirituality, Evolution and Religion. Everyone was happy to find their ideas buffeted by eclectic experiences. As it happens in the end of the blogger discussions, the discussion steered towards laying the foundation for a new blog to share our ideas with the world. Ah! Feels heavenly to be a blogger!



An Update from the Marshal
You can check out the pictures from the meet here.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Blog-a-Ton Meet Mumbai edition



We emailed. We decided. We met. We talked. We laughed. We had cutting chai (which wasn't cutting, was it?)



Parth had Irish coffee. Parth said, "What baccha?". We talked some more. We took (a few) pics. Dishit made a famous theater person to take our pics. We think he was shocked. We left.



My sincere thanks to all of you that came. I'm sorry I'm posting from my phone so I can't link your names and blogs but you know who you are. Thanks for coming and be a part of the first ever BaT meet. :)

This is me, PC signing off.



An Update from the Marshal
Read here what Gkam has to say about the Mumbai Meet.

Jab We Met : Blog-a-Ton Delhi Chapter


Date - 4th July
Venue - Barista, Connaught Place, Delhi

We had a reason to celebrate; Blog-a-Ton turned one and the city wise meets were planned. It was a Sunday and the weather gods were happy too. So we all met at the Barista. People started joining in and slowly we were a group of 13.

The agenda was to meet up, get introduced, eat the cake, do some chit chat and then leave. It started off slow with casual discussions on blog platforms and problems that few of us might face with different browsers, platforms etc.

We then moved on to each one and their blogs and what a discussion it was. Everyone talked about what made them start with blogging and what all do they write. With each one getting few minutes of spotlight, stories started coming out. Some wrote for a social cause, some for bringing a change, some for the love of writing and some just for love; but what was common in each one of us, that we enjoyed thoroughly this world of words.


The cake brought by Geetanjali was a visual treat and even yummylicious to eat.


Lot of pictures followed the cake cutting ceremony and it definitely did not look like a group of people that met just few hours back. We then scribbled a line or two on a white t-shirt about the meet. The Marshal - Vipul actually wore the Tee and here it is (please focus on the comments and not on the pot belly :P)




 More pictures followed and we finally said a bye with plans of another meet soon. I thoroughly enjoyed organizing the entire event and being a part of it was even bigger fun.


















 I would like to mention here the contribution of Himanshu Shekhar  in helping me find the right place for the meet.

Also, a special mention to Vipul Grover for starting B-A-T and getting us all together.

Long live BAT :) :)

P.S. for more pictures - http://www.flickr.com/photos/pankajb/sets/72157624295900651/

P.P.S. I shall soon post with a line or two on each of the participant. Watch out for more :)

Love
----
Richa S.


An Update from the Marshal
Taking our tagline 'If its Your Post, It looks Best on Your Own Blog', too seriously, our Delhi Meet Marshal saved the best part of her write up for her own blog. So also visit here to read her take on all those who attended the meet including me.

And here are some more pictures from my camera - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=189464&id=653175263&l=a6afe88b73