Twilight Fairy » blogmeets

2008 roundup – part une

Twilight Fairy — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:43:34 +0000

I am back with a long awaited attempt at getting back to the “Drid Nishchaya” of being regular at the blog (though I am sufficiently active on the photoblog, the microblog and to some extent the Delhi Bloggers‘ Blog). Here’s a roundup of the salient features of the 2008 chapter of my life, most of which was intended to appear on this blog but did not turn up for various reasons.

The year 2008 started on quite a bad note. Right after the 12am gong struck 1st Jan 2008, and I was holidaying at Sonapani, I discovered a “virtual” can of worms in my online social circle and had to perform the virtual equivalent of chemotherapy on a virtual entity I had started. All that done, it was surely a relief. I was very glad and also pleasantly surprised to see the support this ‘act’ garnered for me. It was one of the times where one could clearly differentiate between friends and foes, commitment and shallow words, sincerity and selfish, plain greed. On the whole though it was unpleasant, it was also a great learning. Human nature has many a fascinating avenue to explore and observe. And realise.

On 13th Jan 2008, the Delhi Bloggers group celebrated its 4th anniversary in Blues, CP. We all had great fun. It was a simple fun affair. For a change we had no agenda, sponsors or planning. Just a night with online friends who have been together since 4 years and liked to be together. The common thread tying them – Delhi & blogging.

In late february last year, 23rd Feb to be precise, we bade farewell to our dearest doggie, as he left for the doggie heaven above, after giving us a glorious 17 years & 2 months of his affectionate company. I had planned to write about it on the blog to express the pain and I even put some other posts on hold because of that. But I never could. The loss of a pet may not be understood by those who have never owned one. But believe me, it’s like the loss of any family member or rather that of a child. 17 is teenage in human years and abt a 120 in doggie years. My sister and I have spent the bigger part of our lives in his company than without it, so it’s a loss that is unforgettable for life alright. The pain of the separation apart, it was a most unfortunate time we had, while looking for a decent burial spot (crematoriums have been stopped by the govt). It would have been better if we had thought out the horrendous details earlier, even though painful. I continue to miss him every single moment that I breathe. God bless him for the unconditional love he gave us.

In early March, I organised Delhi’s first tweetup (Twitter meet) along with @mojosanjay. It was great fun and we had a huge attendance even though organised in a jiffy. There were out station members as well and I even shot a video of most members. Got to still work on that to share it . It was a meet in a cafe, we explained twitter to those who didnt know it and also explained some mashups to those who did.

In late March, I “aged” another year. The least said the better .

In April, we helped organise Blogathon India and had a partner meet in Delhi for that. This meet was sponsored by Alootechie. It was a nice cosy affair at “The Attic” in CP – a place to fall in love with. The participation in blogathon was good and had a great potential if done regularly. The sponsorship was based on verbal commitment. It was just 4K to cover the rent & snacks charges. However, getting a reimbursement of that money probably cost me at least 1/4th the amount in just persuing them for it and took 5 months of continuous pressure. A harassing experience, but I made sure I at least got my money back. I am told (via other bloggers) that this isn’t a one off thing, it’s a consistent one with this organisation.

In April again, Dinesh Khanna (who I co-administer “Delhi Photographers” with) drew my attention to the fact that my picture was there all over in Canon’s brochures in every camera box! Well, it still is. And unfortunately there’s not much I can do about it. It had been clicked by photographer friend Sanjay when he & I were trying out our brand new Canon 400D’s and the various features of our new “toys”. This pic as it turned out, suited a particular contest of Canon very well. We discussed the pros/cons of participation & Sanjay decided to send it in hoping to win the first prize – a cool camera lense (which we were quite sure of winning given the quality of the picture demonstrating every aspect of a camera). Later he got a notification that his pic would be used for some Canon related stuff. No news about the competition. Till date. In return he got nothing but a silly camera manual. The modified picture that is there in every Canon Camera’s box now, is so botched up that it literally looks mutilated. The worst treatment to subject someone’s creation to. The contest fine print allows them to publish the picture, however the whole episode reeks of unethical practices on Canon’s part. If the picture was that good that it can go out as part of a brochure of every single Canon EOS series camera now (and has been so since past 1 year plus), then it definitely deserved first prize. What better certification was required than the very fact that Canon decided to save on agency costs & used a picture clicked by a Canon user! However we never heard anything from Canon till date. Bad Canon.

Soon in May, I got an article published in Hindustan Times. It was on blogging and the community of Delhi Bloggers that exists – their meets, the events, the fervour. Felt great . I have had many interviews (print/visual/audio) taken earlier, but in terms of writing something (not creative work that incidentally got published too) specifically for publishing in a leading publication, this was a first.

In late May, I left my organisation of 8.5 years to join another for the kind of role I wanted. It was a moment I expected to be “impacting” me in a very large way. Surprisingly it didn’t. Not quite. A smooth transition emotionally I guess is due to the disillusionment of many years. It was a long journey with many nuggets worth sharing here. I got a short break of 3 weeks in between both jobs. I tried to get a longer one but the IT industry is just not kind to people who want to take a sabbatical.

Just after I left my prev orgn, 104.8 Meow FM interviewed me in their studio. I had a great time with Ginnie Mahajan who was the host of the show – Tu Tu Meow Meow. It was supposed to be a live chat show where callers call and asked me questions about blogging and then there were random songs that played as well. During the songs part I got to know Ginnie and during the chat part, the callers got to know me. There were some rather hilarious moments where I just could NOT control my laughter while we were live and Ginnie had a lot of fun at my expense in a LIVE show! My family, extended family, some friends & ex-colleagues were all tuned in. Couple of bloggers who knew me called in and some others called me after the show because they had happened to hear me on air! All in all it was a great experience. I had been interviewed by BBC radio in Apr 2006, but a live show in a studio is a different ball game altogether. I had asked a friend to record the show on my mp3 player so I have some sort of a recording but it has a lot of noise in various places. Unfortunately when Meow FM sent me a much needed recording of my show it turned out to be someone elses. Probably someone, somewhere else is laughing off at the chat show that we all are supposed to laugh at! I am yet to edit the recording I have and share it for your hilarious listening pleasure.

On June 7th, I happened to organise India’s first social media camp. Note – there may have been many blogcamps earlier, but there were no camps at all which catered to social media or the various commercial uses of it or social media marketing. I realised this when I tried planning for this particular camp. I could not find any precedent for any sort of guideline. Eventually I shortlisted some areas where social media is used in todays Web2.0 world and tried to invite speakers from that very domain to talk about how they used social media. In the end we had speakers from the Print media, Travel industry, Corporate blogging arena, Social media marketing, a leading newschannel, developers who create social networks, a humour blogger talking abt his social media experience, a blogger presenting a debatable topic – “protecting” social media, a session on our evergreen twitter, social media in the mobile network and a lawyer talking on the much needed legal aspect of social media and of course monetisation. It was a very interesting affair. Our prime sponsor was Indiatimes and we were also assisted by IBM, WordPress and Tyroo. The event was very well appreciated. We got great feedback and accolades. It could not have been possible without Sanjay and Garima. The perfect team to work with. Thanks Guys!

On 16th June, I joined my new organisation, with a new role – the kind that I wanted for long but could not get in the ex-orgn. Later, within 6 months I would get an award at excellence in work and I would wonder why I did not leave my ex-organisation earlier.

I’ll follow up the next 6 months (part deux) in a separate post. Since it’s already been 6 months into 2009 too, perhaps those 6 months (part trois) in another post as well :\.

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DBM#25- a meet for delhi bloggers and microbloggers – a roundup

Twilight Fairy — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 10:33:21 +0000

On 20th, Delhi witnessed its second twitter meet. Unlike the previous twitter meet, which was held in a cafe, this meet was sponsored by Incube Business centre. The meet started at 5pm. I got there by about 5:20pm thanks to the traffic. There were already some twitter enthusiasts who had introduced themselves to each other. Kumar Rahul was fully prepared with a laptop, ready to just start. We had another round of introductions during which we noted down the twitter id’s or mail id’s (of those who were not on twitter). During the intro round, Gautam Ghosh walked in and I quickly put the onus of kickstarting a session, onto him. Gautam talked about what twitter really meant for him. Conversations are what matter – at the end of the day, whichever platform you are on.

This was followed by a talk on kwippy.com by co-founder – Mayank dhingra, who also got caught in the traffic and arrived midway Gautam’s session.

By the time this session ended, we had already overshot a lot of time and quickly rushed to the refreshment part of our agenda.

Some tasty grub later, we came back in, to discuss the TOI case of plagiarism that I had faced. I was also carrying the copy of What’s hot with the corrigendum in it. Everyone seemed amused by the whole sequence of events. This was followed by a talk on “Bill of rights” by Kumar Rahul. This is a collection of points he plans to take up with @scobleizer.

We followed this with another round of some rather tasty sandwiches, samosas, tea & coffee. Just before we all were leaving, someone suggested we click a group picture, so we did with about 1/4th of the participants. All pictures would be uploaded soon and a post shall be here to keep you all updated. Tune into the rss feed of this blog .

There were about 40 participants, even though the confirmations were more than double. A lot of names may not have been noted down, so if your name is missing, please do drop in a comment. A list of attendees, in no particular order. Those not on twitter have had their mail id’s mentioned.

Twilight Fairy : @twilightfairy

Sanjay: @mojosanjay

Gautam: @gautamghosh

Kumar Rahul: @kumar_rahul

Vishal Singhal: @vishalsinghal

Ashutosh: @xyzashu

Divya: @dichakravarty (all the way from bangalore)

Sameer: @sameergupta

Mayank Gupta: @mayankgupta

Krisnair: @krisnair

Nikhil: freakynikh at gmail dot com

Amrita: kumar dot amrita at gmail dot com

Rajbir: @rajjo19

Nitin: @ndhawan

Niraj: imniraj at gmail dot com

Vidhi: @vidhithakur

Vimoh: @vimoh

Dipankar: @dipankarsarkar

Maitrayee: maitrayee.rcy at gmail dot com

Ketu Desai: swetaketu79 at gmail dot com

Aionava: myspeedpost at gmail dot com

Abhijit: @jeetblog

Abhishek: @abhishek

Arun: @simplyarun

Pankaj: @pjain

Rohit: rohit.sharma3 at wipro dot com

Gurudatt : @prolificd

Mayank Dhingra: @mayankdhingra

Arjun : @arjunghosh

Gayatri : @grath

Sanjay Jha

Manik

Monica : @jasuja

Check some of the tweets from that day. Here are the posts on this event written by Gautam, Mayank. If anyone else has written anything about the event, please leave a comment here and it will be added in the roundup.

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Social Media & Blog camp! – a description

Twilight Fairy — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 07:01:07 +0000

I have been organising Delhi Blogger Meets and events around Delhi Bloggers, since many years now. Recently we did something quite differently. On 7th June’08, we managed to present a Social Media & blog camp for Delhi Bloggers Bloc – an online community of Delhi Bloggers. Blogging has come a long way and is one of the most powerful tools that are a part of “Social Media”. This post has been long pending since I was in the process of changing jobs during that time, and was also waiting for some of the speakers to provide me with their presentations. I still haven’t received all, but well, better late than never!

The DBB – social media and blog camp was held at Indiatimes, Gurgaon office on 7th June’08. The event venue, meal and snacks were sponsored by Indiatimes. We also had IBM & Wordpress as promoters for this event. Tyroo ads was the online partner as well. There was another corporate – a leading telecom giant – who was going to be one of the sponsors but backed out at the last moment. All part of the game I guess! The event tags and pens were sponsored by Puneet of Superblogsecrets.com. Getting sponsorship was a learning experience in designing pitches and preparing concept notes. The giveaways were uber cool and perhaps one of the most pleasant surprises of the day. Indiatimes provided t-shirts and stationery. IBM provided sippers. Wordpress provided some rather cute badges (which got lapped up very very quickly & I kept getting requests for them much later as well) and stickers. Indiatimes also had a lucky draw and provided all speakers as well as the lucky winners – a USB watch! How cool is that? A watch which also doubles up as a USB device.

We had released only 100 passes for this event and later had to extend them because of the high demand! I had to refuse some ppl who wanted to attend since we were already overflowing capacity. I had also been getting a lot of calls from people who wanted to speak at this event on a lot of interesting topics. However, we had to limit that too, much as we didnt like it! We had planned several talks by eminent personalities on relevant topics. The topics touched on web2.0 aspects in a lot of spheres.

The camp kicked off with N Madhavan’s talk on taxonomy of blogs – a way for newbies to identify where they are in this blogosphere. Madhavan is a senior journalist with HT with an active interest in New Media.

This was followed by a web 2.0 – travel industry perspective. Digital Marketing for the Travel Industry in the Web 2.0. Scenario was presented by Nirat Bhatnagar, co-founder of chahiye.info.

Rajesh Lalwani of blogworks.in presented two back to back sessions. Both were very well received. The first was Where are you going in your social media car? This session presented a perspective on social media – we talk so much about it but are we getting there yet? This was followed by an excellent case study Impact of social media on purchase – derived from personal expriences on purchase.

The next session was by Shyam Somanadh, Principal Architect, Network18 (Web18) who presented Participatory Media: The view from inside. He talked about some of the things that the Web18 team had done wrt social media on their own website. This was the time I learnt that “participatory” media is yet another term for social media.

This was followed by a quick talk on Twitter by Sanjukta Basu where she discussed twitter and also used it for a live demo.

We had to omit a rather interesting session on Social media – Socio cultural implications and trends – by Manav Deep Mianwal, Head Brand & Media, Airtel enterprise services since he couldnt be there due to personal reasons. We were running short of time, so this provided some getting back on track.

We quickly jumped to the session on Social media in the corporate context – presented by Natraj Akella, Brand strategy & marketing, IBM.
After this we had worked up quite an appetite and moved on to a great sumptuous lunch. The whole place was jampacked and people could be seen enjoying and of course networking.
After lunch we started with Bringing “Social” to software presented by Manish Dhingra, founder Tekriti software. This session talked about how to incoporate that social context in software.

This was followed by a “light” session – Exploiting the Internet – Riding somebody else’s Success by Jamshed V Rajan, Director products, Ibibo web pvt limited. Jammy is known for his humour blog – ouchmytoe.com and also showed us a rather interesting video on Social Media.

Then came a very debated session Protecting “New” in New Media by Prashant Singh. It presented various insights into our psyche about social media. Nikhil of Medianama.com, actually willingly gave up his session so that discussion around this topic could go on. He later presented his own take on the same topic.

A much needed session on Law & Technology was well presented by Gurpreet Singh, Internet Attorney. He discussed copyrights and trademarks.

This was followed by an interactive session on What makes mobile social networks successful? This was presented by Ekta Rohra Jafri.

The last session of the day was one that a lot of people had been waiting for. The monetary aspect of blogging (how could we not include that? ).
Blogging Superstars : How to monetize a blog effectively? was conducted by Mohit Maheshewari, Co-founder Tonic Tag Media Pvt Ltd.

This event was quite well received by both the audience as well as those who wanted to present something. It is amazing to see how social media creeps into everything – be it the corporate world, purchase, travel, traditional media etc. There were a lot of other interesting topics that I wanted to have during our session. However due to limited time we could not. I would have also personally liked to do an elaborate session on photography and how it is benefitting due to social media. Due to lack of time with me as well as a well known photographer I had approached, we could not conduct this one. Next time surely!

The participants were a very intresting mix with people from internet companies, startups, national TV channels, IT personnel, civil society, lawyers, brand managers, social workers, mainstream newspapers etc. The news about this event had reached a lot of people. A surprise entrant was Pavan Duggal, the well known lawyer who also attended this event, having heard of it from a friend.

The day ended with a closing thanks by me, followed by lucky draw and surveys/feedbacks.
It was a fruitful day full of compliments for the enormous effort behind it. All this would not have been possible without Garima and Sanjay – my co-organisers for the event. Garima worked from the Indiatimes end. Sanjay and I, designed pitches, made powerplay presentations, posters, tags, schedules, invites, concept notes etc.

Here’s a mini glimpse of how Amit Ranjan of slideshare.net, saw it and enjoyed it . Here’s what Sanjukta, an oldie in our DBB group, had to say . “social media and blog camp by Delhi Bloggers Bloc ws a total hit..v v engaging, interesting sessions. m proud to b an oldie in this grp “, says Sanjukta on twitter! Thanks Sanjukta . Here’s what Shyam Somnadh says about the day. Here’s what Kreeti tweeted about the day – here and here.

Here are some of the pictures we clicked that day. It was a day very well spent after which we proceeded to sleep off the sleepless nights spent behind the organising of this mega event.

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Social media & Blog camp

Twilight Fairy — Tue, 27 May 2008 14:39:28 +0000

It’s been quite some time since we were planning the “Social media & Blog camp” to be held at Indiatimes, Gurgaon on 7th June’08. It started as an idea from scratch and finally we have managed to get a sponsored venue for this exciting event. Indiatimes, our gracious sponsor is also providing us free wi-fi, lunch, tea/coffee and snacks. There is so much to learn on Social media & blogging in the social marketing context. Are you going to be there? You can register as a speaker or just as an attendee.

This is a one-day semi-camp style “unconference”* which brings together stakeholders and audiences of social media and blogging. The wave of social media in India (which includes Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Ryze, Orkut, YouTube, Flickr and many more) has led to a huge interest in the personal and business implications of this here-to-stay form of interaction. Blogging has already been a huge platform of expression for professionals and citizens from all walks of life.

The idea is to provide an ongoing and large platform of interaction for everyone, from entrepreneurs to enthusiasts, from technology to marketing experts, and from media to PR, to enrich themselves with a whole world of learning and business opportunities.

Where :

Date : 7th June’08 (Saturday), 9:30am – 5:30pm

Venue : Indiatimes office,
Times Internet Ltd.
I World , Opp. DLF Golf Course,
DLF City Phase V,
Gurgaon, Haryana – 122005
The venue is wifi enabled and has an auditorium, projectors and a board room for parallel tracks if the need arises. Lunch/tea/coffee/snacks would be provided by our prime sponsor – Indiatimes.

Parking : this will be provided inside Indiatimes office; Map: 3b5998;">http://xrl.in/5lk

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Delhi Bloggers blaze a trend

Twilight Fairy — Thu, 15 May 2008 04:35:27 +0000

This article of mine got published in HT. I am posting it here as well.. That piece also carried Rajesh Lalwani’s post on microblogging.

Internet and blogging have both come a long way. In the days of yore, we used to have Web pages on Angelfire or Geocities. There was a trend of putting freely available javascript code on the “homepages” to add the bells and whistles. An occasional addition to the “guest count” was a luxury. Interaction with the “guests” was out of the question.
Cut to now. The homepage has been replaced by the blog. Unlike traditional writing, blogging is not just meant for reading or consuming, it also initiates interaction and creates conversation. Bloggers build upon the thoughts and ideas of other bloggers and they all engage in the conversation. The blog has gone from being just an ‘online diary’ to a tool of professional and personal growth. If you are a blogger, anything, including but not limited to, book deals, job offers, celeb status, help in remote corners of the planet, TV interviews, regular income and career changes can come your way. But blogging is not only about reclusive online expression or anonymity. With online interaction comes the need to meaningfully interact offline as well, which in turn enriches online interaction. Blog communities and meetings address that need – and do much more. Not only are such communities, a great way to network socially and professionally, they also introduce bloggers to like-minded people who share the same tastes and a diverse variety of interesting opinions. A bloggers meeting fits the bill for social networking and may also align itself to activities in line with a group’s interests. Meeting offline is now the most natural thing to do once you have interacted online. That could get you a venture partner, a job offer, new contacts – or love!

Delhi’s bloggers happen to have a strong community. The group called the Delhi Bloggers Bloc (www.delhibloggersbloc.com) also happens to be possibly the oldest such community in India. It provides bloggers a common platform to interact online as well as offline apart from giving them a chance to share and promote their blogs. Frequent activities like photography/heritage walks, fun gatherings in pubs/cafes and serious meetings with agendas and outreach exercises, make sure that there is something in it for everyone. In fact so inspired was Sanjukta Basu, a veteran member of DBB, that she initiated another community on the same lines when she shifted to Bangalore. The Delhi bloggers community (DBB) was formed after some bloggers met at their first ever Delhi Blogger’s Meet on 13th January, 2004. The members recently celebrated the group’s 4th anniversary as well with a successful meeting. The group aspires to seek new and worthwhile ways to interact, learn, share, discuss and evolve both online and offline. The best part of this group is having so many people from diverse backgrounds, who one may not come across in the “normal” social circles one has. The group consists of an eclectic mix of people ranging from 14 to about 50 years of age with IT professionals, architects, chartered accountants, lawyers, doctors, journalists, social activists, housewives, army officers, media professionals, students, photographers, professional bloggers and others as members.

To be a member of the group, you can be a blogger who is or has been in Delhi or you can be a blog reader or someone who is keen on blogging and needs assistance in starting one. There is no age limit for joining. However if you are still studying, make sure your parents do not have a problem in your indulging in online activities. The group has had 23 officially chronicled meetings, a couple of unofficial meets, lots of history walks, sharing of photography tips, book reading sessions—and even kite flying days! The group, while being in the process of educatinonal exercises on blogging, has undertaken initiatives with voluntary groups and schools to help them harness the power of blogging. With so many forms of online interactions available, the group has its presence on social networking sites like Facebook and Orkut as well.

To encourage professional networking amongst the DBB members, the group has a presence in business networking sites like LinkedIn. It also has a presence on flickr.com, the photo sharing site where they can share pictures from their blogger meetings as well as individual pictures.

There is a strong presence of photographers and photo bloggers in the group. With the advent of new media, the group has already had Delhi’s first Twitter meetup, for those who do mini-diaries on the go through Twitter.com It exists on Twitter as delhitweetup. The nerve centre of its interaction is however, a mailing list on Yahoogroups (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/delhibloggers/). All that is not easy for those who have other things to do. Many active members have taken time off their workaday lives to make a community and sub-culture out of blogging.

(The author is a software professional, photographer and founder of Delhi Bloggers Bloc.)

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DBM XXII – the first ever Delhi tweetup

Twilight Fairy — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:59:07 +0000

Time for the next meet – DBM XXII – which is also the first ever Delhi tweetup.

Before we go ahead – let see what this confusing jargon is (for those who are unaware of it).
A tweetup is a “twitter meetup”. Twitter is a tool used for microblogging. Microblogging is blogging micro updates.

That was twitter in short. One can update these microblogging updates through IM, sms or web. There are also several desktop clients to do the same. Through twitter one can choose to “follow” people and get to read their twitter updates. Similarly ppl who “follow” you would get to read your updates. Twitter is quick and easy, very good for bloggers who dont have much time to update their blogs .

Some of us are on twitter already. Some ppl like Hillary and Obama are also there . It doesnt matter whether it is really them or their proxies but they are very regular there. Those who aren’t yet on twitter, but would like to be, can quickly join in. Once that is done, you can follow “delhitweetup” – the id created for delhi twitter meets. This id is currently following some of you already. So the twitter updates of Delhi twitter users would also be in one place.

Now for the real thing:

When : 16th March’08 (sunday)
What time : sometime in the evening – 4-ish.
What : get acquainted with each other. Demystify twitter for those who dont know it yet.
Where : you decide .. This would depend on the number of ppl willing to attend the same.
Please give your ayes and nayes here (or you could tweet them keeping @delhitweetup in your confirmation tweet).

Those who wish to follow me on twitter, my id is twilightfairy.

Happy tweeting!

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DBM XXI (4th Anniversary celebrations)

Twilight Fairy — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 23:44:06 +0000

On 13th Jan 2004, a group of bloggers in Delhi decided to get together and meet offline for the first time. The excitement, apprehension, curiosity of meeting total strangers – all culminated in a rather successful meet and the formation of a community which has lasted all this while.

It’s the 4th birthday of our beloved community. It’s great to have lasted this long in the online world, certainly no mean feat this one! 20 official meets, a couple of unofficial meets, history walks, photography gyaan, book reading, kite flying, link-ups, print/tele coverage (BBCRadio/ Delhi Times/HT City/TodayPlus), flame wars, exercises in blogging outreach and endeavours with NGO’s ……….we’ve come a long way together.

The group has had as its members, people from all walks of life..techies, journos, students, activists, photographers, lawyers, doctors, guys who make their living off blogs!!..and we’ve walked a few steps together. A few in our group have moved on, relocated to other cities, but are still a part in spirit, and try and stay in touch. As the old saying goes “Once a DelhiBlogger, always a DelhiBlogger!!”

We are celebrating our 4 years in this online world and keeping a simple meet this time with no frills and fancies – only fun unlimited, which includes shooting a video of delhi bloggers. If you wish to join in on the fun, please append your name at the meet registration link or write to twilightfairy at gmail dot com (mobile # nine eight one one five one one seven one nine). Please keep your calendars blocked for 13th Jan 2008, 4:30-11pm, Blues, Outer circle, CP, New delhi . You can drop in any time at your convenience.

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The Delhi Blog Mob

Twilight Fairy — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 09:03:18 +0000

New Delhi, 13 Jan

Delhi experienced its first Blog Mob today at TGIF, Vasant Vihar at around and after 4pm. This mob, which went on the lines of the latest fad – flash mobs, had several ppl of the blogging community from Delhi meeting up at a designated place and time, but unlike flash mobs, this one didn’t dissipate as fast (this mob kept waiting to be kicked out). It was organised by a series of people having a fetish for the letter ‘S’, namely Sandhya, Simple Simon, Sw Ne, and also Sakhi. Bloggers started trickling in at the decided time and took full advantage of the Happy Hours. When our correspondent reached the venue, she was greeted by a lively mob of around 15, who all wanted to meet the person with ‘music on her blog’. There were a few ppl coochie cooing in a corner and taking advantage of the smoke screen enveloping around them (a creation of their own incessant smoking) to do unimaginable things. Sw Ne was seen getting bubbly as she took in a lot of the same, it explained her amorous advances towards Khotta. Beauty certainly lies in the eyes of the be(er)holder, Kyonki Khotta certainly is no Depp and he was painfully reminded the same by all.

Lone Cypress was not so lonely since she had a date for the eve (wonder how she landed up with a China Man to get rid of her lonelyness, unless he has *something* of Leviathan proportions). May be Shubir coined in a phrase like ‘Old Chinese Saying – Get in the company of a man with *something* of Leviathan proportions and you shall not want anything else in life’ to impress her.

Jill of all trades aka Newton’s apple seemed to be the youngest blogger around but was found to be not so. On being provoked somewhat, she vehemently claimed that she loved Delhi enough to spend an entire lifetime here. Senjam Raj sekhar was seen doing what he does best, improve his PR with the people around him. Soumya was seen quietly observing all around him and helping Lone Cypress and Shubir by creating enough smoke screens around them which gave competition to the next day’s fog that was to envelop Delhi.

Priya (yeah that’s her name, not Mansi, as she insists) was seen merrily sipping Bloody Mary from all the glasses which held her potion. The effect has been noticed in certain pictures that she took of the crowd. They have been censored to protect identities.

Ajay had to peer over the crowd since he was at a higher level than the rest, not intellectually but because of his height. Asterix the gaul, was seen downing a lot of potion (even oblix’s share). Arnav (he’s not anonymous any more) was seen chatting up all members of the fairer sex who were in his vicinity. He didn’t change his vicinity as often as Deepan who was observed giving a lot of competition to Sw Ne for her double meaning, suggestive comments aimed at Khotta (of course, they went over his head, since he was concentrating on his lips too much, hoping they would get lucky). Abhishek Saxena was heard humming all the songs that were dedicated to the bloggers.

Ranjan was seen to stride in quite late, and he seemed to be searching for someone. It was a general perception, that he’s searching for his soulmate and was expecting to find one at the blog mob. His face said it all when he DID spot someone familiar. He stared at Sanjem for around 5 minutes (boring a hole in his head with his stare) and then informed him that he’s Sanjem Raj Sekhar. They both looked at each other as if they would kill each other. According to records, they both were supposed to have met at a debate organised in guawhati.

Beautiful life was seen being shy and coy and she hurried out the earliest she could (maybe she had someone waiting with whom she’s not so shy). WonderBug was seen giggling with Priya, when the latter would start searching for her Bloody Mary and with Deepan who was observed to be nose diving in his drink. Jasprit was seen handling all the waiters as they got confused with the huge orders. Sanjay arrived quite late with a confused look, wondering whether he had landed at the right place, but after some time, his confused look was replaced by an interested one, which revealed that this sort of thing was new to him. Amit netahoy Agarwal was the last one to arrive, and was seen getting his dimpled profile clicked by the official photographers.

A couple of bloggers were found absconding and there were a lot of hushed murmurs in the crowd about their whereabouts. Somersault aka irony aka Oddity aka Fried green apple (whatever) was missing along with Heretic. Scout Finch was reportedly drowning in her work. Her boss was later found murdered in her office.

The organisers presented everyone with a CD that had been tediously compiled by them. The CD was played throughout the evening with one track dedicated to each blogger. A vote of thanks was given to the organisers by our correspondent.

But this leaves a lot of questions unanswered. Would Ranjan ever find his soulmate? Would Jill of all trades ever settle down in Delhi. Would Khotta’s lips ever get lucky? Would Lonely Cypress ever learn to cook chinese? Would Deepan perfect his aim of nosediving in his drinks? Yeh sab jaan-ne ke liye dekhte rahiye HUM (B)LOG!

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Delhi Bloggers Meet

Twilight Fairy — Mon, 12 Jan 2004 09:05:01 +0000

Do I, dont I.. Do I, don’t I.. and no, I am not plucking any flower petals to decide whether I should go for the DBM or not. This is what has been going on in my mind generally. Normally I would be *really* enthusiastic about anything that’s different from normal but this is something like a blind date which is HUGE in magnitude! Well, I have hardly read the bloggers who are to come for the DBM and honestly speaking I have consciously avoided reading any, so as to not form any presumptions..(they all would be cleared anyway if I go to the DBM).
But what would it be like, going to meet ppl who you don’t know a single thing about! Except for the fact that they have one thing in common with you – a blog..and maybe another.. – Delhi.. hell I dont know the actual names of many..but then I guess the psuedonyms should suffice. It would all depend on my impulsiveness at THE moment.. and of course, my official obligations. In the past, they haven’t left me with much time for anything else.
So as of now DBM here I come!!!

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