Twilight Fairy

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.

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

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 The homepage has been replaced by the blog.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.)

“Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel” crooned the Doors. But it wasn’t just for the sake of crooning that they belted out this piece. It’s a very sane bit of advice especially while driving on killer highways like what NH-8 has become now. NH-8 was never a typical highway (At least not in the recent past and not in the NCR area) since it always had so much of traffic and too many arteries merging into it. With the opening up of almost all the flyovers on the highway the situation has improved somewhat (only to some extent and only at certain times of the day). But there are still lots of bottlenecks to be sorted out.

My only conclusion is – It is so dangerous to drive in the rightmost (or even leftmost) lanes of this highway that I prefer driving in the middle lanes. One never knows when one may encounter a pedestrian, a cyclist, a jaywalker, a picnicking bunch with various paraphernalia or body parts sticking out into the rightmost lane, a pole (for vaulting or not is left to us), a mud heap that appears like a mountain looming large (thanks for the landscaping), trucks, cranes or other LMV’s/HMV’s wanting to encroach on NHAI property or ubiquitous NHAI boards that are kept parallel to the roads direction which means they are invisible boards and they cant be seen. In a project that’s already 2 years behind schedule, when NHAI does implement the toll part of this project onto us commuters, I am sure the situation would get even more dramatic and chaotic. There’s still a substantial time before all these issues get sorted out and actually make the Delhi-Gurgaon drive smooth and safe to say the least.

Who needs a time machine when one has one’s imagination to ride on? And a “ticket to ride” is provided by the immense heritage that is all around. On Sunday I attended, one of the India Habitat Centre organised “History Walks”. I had been wanting to attend one since years, but somehow I would always miss the opportunity or I would not be able to drag myself out of bed at unearthly hours on Sunday mornings. This Sunday however saw me determinedly see to it that I at least go and take a peek at what the concept of history walk entailed. It had been quite some time since I had gotten up as early as 6:30 am on a Sunday. This used to happen more in childhood, when we would get up early even on sundays, so as to get ready, eat breakfast and be free by the time “Rangoli” would get aired at 7:40am on good old Doordarshan. For, after that initial kickstart, the whole day used to be a non-stop, funfilled, TV affair and not a single kid I knew would miss it. If one didn’t get the hurdles like bathing and eating, aside, before Rangoli started, they would stare at you in your face when it would be siesta time. Anyhow, this is not about that personal history called childhood. This is about the history walk conducted by a historian who took us around Qudsia bagh, Nicholson Cemetry and other late Mughal and British areas around Kashmiri gate.

So here I was, after waking up at that unearthly hour on a Sunday morning to boot, with “project hairwash” aside (it *is* a project with complete planning, execution and maintenance), on my way to Masonic club, Jamuna road. I managed to reach there in time, in spite of hardly having seen this part of Delhi, ever in my life. Whatever is left of Qudsia Bagh, is apparently inside Masonic club. The greater part of the garden was destroyed to make way for Inter State Bus Terminal and the adjacent tourist camp site. With the newly built metro in place, the Kashmiri gate station is nearby. The moment one enters Masonic, it seems one has come to a different Delhi. The place is abuzz with activity, fortunately of the birdie kingdom. There’s a lot of cacophony around which somehow doesn’t cause discomfort. No, it’s not because of the traffic from the nearby busy Ring Road and ISBT. It’s caused by the innumerous birds flapping, shrilling, singing, screeching and generally being “natural”. The place is full of tall trees, and the seeping rays of the morning sun make it look picture perfect.

About 25 people gathered around the historian Swapna, as she explained the history behind the imposing western gate that we saw next to us. Some people were taking notes, some listening in rapt attention, some preparing for photo-ops and still others like me, perhaps trying to imagine what it would have been like in the days of yore. Qudsia Begum (originally Jodha Bai or something similar which I forget now) was the wife of Mughal emperor Mohammad Shah. She got the garden built in the 18th century (1748 to be precise). It comprises of a baradari, a private mosque of the emperor and his wife, and some gates. A small stream used to cross the garden and join the Jamuna river which used to flow just next to the garden. The stream has long been blocked and has stagnant water now. The Ring road stretches over what was once the Jamuna’s river bed. Once inside the garden, devoid of all the noise of a big metropolis, it’s not difficult to imagine a paradise, with a clean Jamuna, flowing by, right next to that green patch. After the 1857 mutiny, the British moved their battery and troops here and bombarded the Kashmiri gate. One of the smashed arches of the mosque, bears a signature of (maybe) a cannon ball that hit it. The British eventually took over and the result is a mix of colonial and mughal architecture. The British also established Civil lines, which was the centre of British administration before the new capital was formally inaugurated. The Old Secretariat, now the seat of government for the Delhi State administration and the Oberoi Maidens Hotel are some of the colonial buildings that stand from those days. “Civil lines”, to this day, is a name associated with a very posh locality, wherever it exists. With all this history in mind, we walked around the Qudsia Bagh stepping into centuries long forgotten and gone past. The baradari is a curious mix of British as well as Mughal architecture. It reminded me very much of some of the army barracks (converted to officer’s accomodation) that I have stayed in. The mosque is functional even today. The gate looks majestic and one can imagine a queen coming here in full splendour to enjoy the flowers and the fruits of this garden. Apparently the emperor and his family used to come here often on picnic and were accompanied by an assorted array of servants and guards. Things were obviously done in style those days.

After exploring Qudsia Bagh we stepped back into modern times and the hustle bustle of this city called Delhi. The motley group of people (some of whom are regulars) walked towards the Oberoi Maidens to see the 100 year old, relatively lesser known hotel, apparently frequented by Jinnah when he was here. The Nicholson Cemetery, nearby, was named after John Nicholson who led the British troops that fought the mutineers in 1857. It happens to be Delhi’s oldest cemetery. As we stepped into the neglected cemetery, it was time travel in another century for us. The British may have ruled this land for a long time, but so many of them also have a “deeply rooted” past here. Lots and lots of graves, with some of them belonging to war casualties, some there as a result of prolonged illnesses, and still some belonging to very young children; speak of the low life expectancy rates in those days. The average age of the dead happened to be very low. This cemetery is right behind Kashmiri gate metro station. After getting a dekko and reading some of the moving epitaphs, we all dispersed. The flitting in and out of time periods, and trying to capture some of the “present”, has certainly whet my appetite for more.

After living an international life with one hell of a transport system and not driving one’s own vehicle for five and a half months, one tends to have doubts about one’s adaptability with respect to the commuting back home. The only culture shock I had on getting back to India was – the way people were driving. But one gotta do, what one gotta do, since there are no other alternatives. It was with much apprehension that I decided to get into the hot seat (after being used to that being the navigator seat in Finland). I had not forgotten driving per se, but all the aggression was absolutely gone. I had suddenly turned into a very tame (read timid in Delhi driving parlance) driver for some reason. People overtaking me from every possible gap left between a divider and a road and honking away to glory as if they were the band wallahs in a baraat, had absolutely no effect on me including that of irritation. I still drove at my speed (within speed limit), in my lane, giving way only when it was right to do so. Everyone rushing away to some destination, strangely didn’t leave me with a me-too-hurry-too complex. I had even forgotten the oh-so-delhi habit of flashing the lights while driving. “Wow”, I thought, “what all can change with a change in lifestyle”, especially since earlier, I was probably exactly the way others were now.

But this dream was too good to last. Very soon, I came across some hoodlums driving with both indicators on, opening doors “mid-flight”, behaving like they were in a spaceship and as if they would trample upon the mere earthlings who happened to crawl unknowingly in their way. As if this extra terrestrial behaviour wasn’t enough, they even had some weird stares and gestures to add to that whole drama-company effect (one only requires to be female for evoking that). That did it. Any self respecting Bhartiya nari would have chatao-ed them some “dhool” and that is exactly what I did by zooming ahead and leaving them with some “dhool mitti” on their face. With that came the end of my barely achieved gajgamini gait in the driving world. Sigh. Life isn’t a rat race. It’s a car race.

For some reason, there are much bigger vehicles on the road now than the predominantly smaller ones earlier. Where did all the Innovas and the Taveras suddenly emerge from, in this “bhainsa” avatar of the car world? Even if they were seating 10 Amir Khan’s inside, they don’t give my mousy Maruti a run for its money. Did I say it was a car race? It’s a rat race, alright. With my rat scurrying faster than the “bhainsa” could even snort. On the very first day of keeping my eyes on the road and hands upon the wheel, I came across four splattered dogs, somewhat as I had expected (though four was quite alarming). I don’t think they were on a mass suicide drive. It must be those driving the bhainsa in cowboy ishtyle, barely able to see the ground beneath their hooves.

Within some days, I realised that the traffic situation had worsened so much in the areas that I frequented, that driving rules have changed altogether. Driving was merely a ‘closing-in-on-the-2-nanometer-gap-left-by-someone-else’ game now. And you had to be superfast at it to reduce that 2.5 hour commute by a nanosecond. Getting stuck in a traffic jam is as frequent as coughing (don’t forget that pollution which has made Delhi the asthma capital) now. Forget the handicaps of a sedentary lifestyle, my feet get more exercise than they can handle; with a clutch-brake routine at the rate of 10/sec. And unfortunately a real life traffic jam isn’t even half as fun as a reel life one, where the heroine can at least get out and flirt with a dashing dude on the top of the car or something. And all those FM channels that specialise in featuring ads, need a lesson or two on what is called “airing-a-MUSIC-program”. Sigh..Delhi driving is driving me desi alright.