In Search of the Holy Grill at the Open Blogger Meet

Most of the Mumbai blogger late evening meets that I have attended have culminated in dinner. (OK, one. But that was at Café Baghdadi. So there ). So, when I toddled off to the open bloggers’ meet yesterday, the hopes for a sumptuous dinner (along with strict instructions of not arguing with the waiters hanging on the wall) were high. One clarification: the meet was open to all, and open did not refer to the sartorial state of the participants.There. Grammar Nazi Nuremberged.

A little background: I was supposed to be in Bhopal, then I was supposed to be in Surat on the 3^rd. Fate and clients thought otherwise, leaving me feeling a little like the guy on Melody’s wonderful invite poster. So, leaving the cozy confines of cocoonated comfort (heh), and presuming the promise of prolific and profound prattle (heh heh) , I made my way to Soul Fry, a cosy little place in Bandra.

Looking in to the restaurant, I saw a big group of people sitting, and could almost hear the ice slowly breaking between them. Entering into the restaurant, I noticed a pretty girl eagerly looking at me, waiting for me to say something…Since this sort of thing doesn’t exactly happen to me every day and is restricted to pretty air hostesses asking me politely why I rang the bell, I paused , savored the moment and then said the magic words (blogger meet). The girl introduced herself as Melody, and I knew that I was finally at the right place.

The Mowgli moment passed (‘We be of one blood, ye and I’) and I joined at the table. I realized that I knew very few people at the table. Bombay Addict was the first person I recognized, from a previous blog meet. It was he who had graciously visited my blog and actually reminded me of this meet. I looked at the person sitting right in front of me, the face looked familiar. It was Vulturo, who had, errr, become more of a Man of Substance, since I saw him last. A person called out and said ‘Hi’ to me and it took me some time to recognize Amit in his India Haircut avatar.

Talk and beer flowed freely. Bombay Addict and I talked about the horrific HT ad that I had blogged about and then Saket and Vivek turned techie, talking about Debian, evil netadmins who block proxy addresses and what not. Got talking with Abhishek, who, it turned out, is working at the place where I did my summer training.

Soon, some mushroom starters arrived at the table, with strict instructions (Café Baghdadi style) that the quota is one per person. In the meantime, moi ordered an orange juice to keep the hunger pangs at bay.

We were joined by Jan, who blogs in Czech and tries to make sense of Mumbai (dude, don’t even try, we gave up years ago.) He told us about the blogging wars in Czech blogdom, the fight between the old and the new.

Bloggers, not really a shy bunch, really come into their own when they meet in packs. As a result, we were strictly asked to keep the noise levels low. (café Baghdadi keeps entering into this, doesn’t it?)

Meanwhile, the entry of pretty ladies into the restaurant made some of us turn our focus away from the sparkling conversations. Attempts at subliminal suggestions to start blogging were made in the direction of the aforementioned people, but they continued on their way, without heeding those. One more disappointing step away from the woo-woo stuff…

Melody, meanwhile, was busy doing her Mother Hen impressions, taking newer entrants under her wing and using her booming voice to great effect.(If that’s the voice coming from her head, the voices inside would have to be really loud.)

Later we were joined by a group of South Mumbai bloggers and by Rishi and Peeyush, who gently asked me how I ended up in HR and even more subtly, what HR actually does.

We then proceeded to celebrate the birthday of Ctulhu, and I expected some food after that, maybe a pastry, but given the fact that we were talking of this Super Evil dude, we could have been on the menu. So, did not pursue that theme.

Some other random observations:

1. Sakshi does not like non-bloggers all that much.
2. Ideasmith’s favourite Hindi word seems to be ‘Daraar’
3. I can’t, simply can’t, get a hang of digital cameras. It starts with which button needs to be pressed to take the damn pic.
4. Girls are like roads. (Don’t ask).
5. Vulturo may soon be called Volupturo. (Don’t ask. Please.)
6. Assets are little donkeys
7. If you want food, order it, dammit!
8. Girls talking dirty is still, slightly unnerving.
9. There are no A-listers. Anybody calling anybody else will be D(e)listed.

So, though no holy Grill in sight, though the conversations more than made up for it. Thanks, everybody!

PS: Don’t have the list of bloggers and don’t have a great memory with names either, so sincere apologies for incidents and people who might have been inadvertently missed out.

PPS: Have made changes and added link goodness.