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DBM XII

This entry was posted in blogmeets blogs DBM's on by (updated 1730 days ago)

The Delhi blogger’s meet (XIIth) concluded on 29th July’06 in Cafe turtle, Khan market. Some highlights :

1. Cafe turtle is a cosy place (read it’s good for twosomes or even threesomes but not 22somes).
2. I had made reservations for 20 ppl which was double the number I had expected to turn up and the eventual number overshot even that. As they say, the merrier it was.
3. After making the reservations I was informed that the cafe closes at half day (read 7:30 pm) but nothing could be done at that point of time. “Shaadi cards already distributed” kind of situation. Though we have had the experience of changing the “shaadi venue” just before the “pheras” earlier too.
4. The organiser who got us to hold DBM XII got stuck up in a crisis at his workplace. Eventually he never turned up. Do you ever remember being in school and a certain teacher not turning up for class? How noisy was the place? How was the organised chaos with no agenda on hand? I wouldn’t be wrong in saying that we resembled a bunch of school kids creating ruckus. We even had backbenchers!
5. Some old timers came after a long long time. It was like the DBM’s of yore all over again.
6. There were bloggers, former journalists, future journalists and even theatre artists. Thankfully no sting operations.
7. The ppl at Cafe turtle surely got boggled when I made reservations. I spelled out “Delhi bloggers meet” for them because they just couldn’t understand the words I was uttering. Eventually I got a call from them confirming the “Daily bogglers meet”.
8. During the round of introductions, where everyone was supposed to start with “I am xxx and I blog at yyy”, the restless mind-boggled waiter silently shimmied on to the terrace like Jeeves and introduced himself in a jiffy – “I am Jason and I am here to take your order”. Do I need to add, he was the most sought after member of the evening. Oh and Nikhil ordered himself yet another fan, but this time it was the sorts that creates a current of air.
9. We had our own share of celebs in this meet. “NDTV called me””CNN IBN asked me to express my views” were very common phrases uttered quite frequently. We will soon have our own P3 coverage too. :p. Unfortunately, this time our cameraman was busy taking footage of the food instead.
10. The back benchers were having a mini blog meet of their own. Some updates anyone? :).
11. Masala chais, coffees, cakes and pastas. These were a few of the favourite things that the bloggers ordered. Who says you need booze to make you feel like you are having fun?
12. I spotted “Lazy lunch” and “lazy pasta” in the menu while Lazylump spotted “Fairy cake” in the menu!
13. I finally got to meet toinks after 3 years of virtual interaction! The grand mommie of rediffblogs is onto blogspot now.
14. At 7:25pm a bill was duly waved under my nose. All and sundry paid for their own consumption and some more (read tax).
15. Those who were still interested in hanging around moved over to the Yellow brick road .
16. A good turnout and a good funfilled DBM!

 


DBM XI 1

This entry was posted in blogmeets blogs DBM's on by (updated 1730 days ago)

Delhi blogger's meet - XI
This meet was a much looked forward to affair because of the sudden interest of Julian, the producer of the BBC World Service Technology programme Digital Planet, Gareth who is the presenter of the same show and Bill, one of Britain’s leading authorities on blogging and net activism; in the affairs of us delhi bloggers, so as to assess the extent of net activity in India, how it differs from other places and to record a special edition of the programme just about this splendid country. To quote them, they were trying to find answers to questions like “Do you have a particular view on the use or effectiveness of your blogs? What do you think about the use of IT in India or its potential? The country is often seen as being in the grip of a technological boom, is this the case from your experience?”

The meet was held at India habitat centre, (a venue which I think is suitable for brainstorming and cultural stuff) on 6th May. Somehow a pub doesn’t seem like the right place for such things though I realise that for a lot of people, perhaps, their brain starts working when they have some alcohol numbing it :p. I reached the venue when I thought the discussion would have gained appropriate momentum. In other words, I wasn’t there from the beginning. I introduced myself to the trio and then met around with a couple of old timers while the discussion was ongoing in full swing with about 30 people. People had already given Bill, Julian and Gareth (though mostly Bill) an idea about the kind of net activities we have here like business networking (ryze), caferati, live blogging after the Tsunami, the IIPM episode etc. We went on to talk about the indexing in the desi blogworld, ongoing plagiarism in blogworld and otherwise, tech blogging (here Julian and Gareth were admittedly thoroughly bored of geeky stuff), news blogging, link blogging, revenue generation through blogs etc. I pitched in with some things about the blank noise project as a response to how blogging can make a difference. There were other means of course, for eg. live updates during Rita, Katriina, mumbai floods and blogging for social causes etc. There were also some discussions about the legal aspect of plagiarism in the blog world, how we (delhi bloggers) are trying to “make a difference” or trying to “bring about a change”. The scope of that “change” could mean different things to different peope – it could be personal growth, indulging in ones hobbies with fellow enthusiasts, honing ones writing skills, indulging in networking, rooting for social causes or getting instant help in case of emergencies. In that context that change or growth has been happening from day one. To a question put up by Bill, asking everyone if we, as a community, were growing and yet moderating ourselves, enough, to “make a difference” – I replied in the affirmative and added the above mentioned thought. I also added, that now “differences which are visible” are also beginning to happen. It’s interesting to note that not only is the community (slowly but surely evolving) but the whole aspect of blogging and how intertwined it is getting with our day to day life – is also evolving.

We eventually had Julian and Gareth record the radio show they wanted. They chose some intriguing observations they had come across in the evening. So they interviewed some people – a blogger who’s an IIT-ian and quit his job to take up blogging full time since he makes more revenue than he would in an MNC (that’s *so* unheard of), a blogger who’s organising an online reality show where a person travels on a modest budget and blogs about it as (s)he does, a blogger who’s part of a community blog – bribe Delhi which has been featured on NDTV as well and then from some aspect of how/when it all started and some stuff about Blank noise – yours truly was also chatted up with. It didn’t feel like an “interview”. Much after the recording got over, we were still in that mode, with Gareth asking me if I had ever imagined some years back that so many things would happen with this community or about blogging in general, how it has grown, changed etc. He also asked me how things were in other metros, whether people were as active there, if there were similar “communities” or “individual islands“.

They all wanted to explore Nehru place for some reason where I guess they got fascinated with an open market (mandi more like) for all kind of hardware. They also told us about their not so great experience in trying to interview some folks there. I emphasised on the fact that they should surely write a travelogue about India (not just because of the British background but also the interesting experiences) because people who aren’t from that place would always notice things that the insiders would probably feel normal about. The 3 most outstanding things in this category being, the way people drive around, the cows minding their own bovine business on roads and the heat (not that we can’t notice the heat. It is anything but ignored.)

By this time, most people had left, some had retired to Eatopia after which they proceded to All American Diner and then Turquoise cottage. I tried to individually meet the remaining members, which is something that happens in every meet but barely happened in this one. Some of us exchanged business cards with the trio. I explained why I wasn’t joining them in the pub, since I had a party to attend in Gurgaon. I described Gurgaon and Gareth showed signs of recognition because they had been exploring the malls the day before. Overall a very very interesting experience and I surely look forward to more such happenings.


Of the bloggers, for the bloggers, by a blogger

This entry was posted in blogs personal on by (updated 2585 days ago)

Bhumika : Finally, this post is up. Long, long ago, (on Blog day to be precise) I had told Gabby about a post I had up my sleeve. More than Gabs, Smiley has been waiting for it. So smiley, finally the answer to your regular question since then, to every single post of mine is, “Yes, this is the post I meant”. Here goes.


Bloggers are so many,
real meetings so few,

If you were in my situation,
what would you do?

Haven’t met any, in this part of the world,
so here’s my way of having a teté-a-teté.

Hope you can also identify with,
what my wild imagination can create!

Leela Absolutely Leela! Her surname isn’t Arora, else, this would have been a perfect match! I am guessing “Lilla” means little, in Swedish, since “Pikku” means little in Finnish.

AlphaAlpha – the Sridevi of blogosphere :).

Harneet“Herne” means peas in Finnish.. “Herneet” is also another version of the same. Now I know where the word “mattar gashti” came from :). Harneet is the only blogger out of all these, that I have met in person also.

GratisgabGratisgab, is one blogger, who I think instantly reacts to what I deem reactionworthy in my posts. Most of the times, ppl react to everything else, leaving out what I think is worth observing.

Serena Have never interacted with Serena, not even in blogosphere. But have seen her around in the same area that I frequent. Serena is the name of a place here. It also has a waterworld kind of resort.

Me! Last but not the least, that’s me! Of course I should have been there to meet all of them. :).

I thought I would definitely bump into Patrix too, in form of a St. Patrix or something. Though I didn’t, I certainly came across what I thought was quite a resemblance of Patrix. Click “Photo of Patrick” in this.


One tight slap 1

This entry was posted in blogs on by

I really like this style of movie editing, usually found in typical Indian movies and serials. As of now, I can visualise a sorry looking IIPM wearing the ‘One tight slap’ expression that says it all – it should have never tried to meddle with someone’s freedom of expression with the atrocious measures they employed. This is to spread awareness about a certain post written by a blogger – Gaurav Sabnis – which talked about the credibility of the huge claims made by IIPM (the villain) and borrowed heavily from another blogger – Rashmi’s – article on her publication Jam-mag, which uncovered several of the facts.

One would wonder what is wrong with that, it is typical blogspeak. But IIPM chose to sue Gaurav (victim 1) in true movie style, for 125 crores on account of defamation. Not only that, they also sued another blogger Varna (Victim 2) who supported Gaurav, for 175 crores. Apart from this, IIPM (the real Prem Chopra type villain using cheap tactics) tried to pressurise Gaurav’s employer, IBM, into making Gaurav retract his statements made against IIPM by threatening to burn IBM’s laptops right outside their office. Well, I personally think they should have let them carry out the threat and seen the police etc. getting involved. That would have been some incident covered by mainstream media and IBM would have got some good publicity anyway which was being threatened in the first place. Gaurav resigned from his job in order to avoid pressures of any kinds and to stand by his sachha word. This was the second incident of its kind where an Indian blogger is being served legal notices because of what he/she has published on his/her blog. The main point of the matter is what rights do bloggers have. Cyberlaws aren’t in place for this kind of a thing especially blogging, which is a relatively new concept. The main stream media is finally sitting up and taking notice of this incident and HT, NDTV, Daily Pioneer, Mumbai mirror have already printed news about the same. The whole episode is being tracked by DesiPundit and can be read here.

There has been a bhuchaal not only on the planet but in blogosphere as well. Bloggers are taking a stand this time and aren’t giving up without a fight. It’s time to show the power of blogging to those who don’t realise it yet. For all those who support the cause for rights of bloggers, can spread the word. Hopefully, we may soon see that “One tight slap” shot and on national television at that.