I had been a blogger 3 years back
and since then, the blogger within me had been on hibernation. Life had changed
a lot since then, and there had been a lots of happenings in my life, which
were worth sharing on my blog, but still possibly, a lazy animal within me had
took over the ‘blogger’ thing within me.
But what you say, destiny or
something else, the blogger had to get alive. Getting little filmy, ‘jab
tum kisi cheez ko poori shiddat k saath chaaho toh saari kaynaat tumhein use milane
mein jut jaati hai.’ In a crowded inbox, last Thursday, I happened to see
an Indiblogger mail with an invitation for #HPInkAdvantage Indiblogger meet to
be held on Saturday. I had heard a lot good about fun, masti and interactions
at IndiBlogger meets. So, being free on the day, I had to attend that. But to
my dismay, I got a Seats Full message at the registration page. However, the
event was still 2 days away, and the Optimistic Simar kept hoping for someone
opting out and grabbing that seat. Fortunately, on the Saturday morning, I saw
two seats for the event and quickly grabbed the chance.
When I reached the venue, I saw
few tables and chairs lined up for a wonderful gathering it was waiting for. I
was one of the firsts to enter in the hall and login. Quite impressed with all
the management and decorum, I was really excited making my debut at Indiblogger
meets. I had Prashant and Sudeep sharing table with me, being alone and a
debutant, the duo really made me feel comfortable and nice. Prashant shared his
earlier experiences of blogger meets, and all this got us more curious for the
times ahead.
And here it goes. The meet
started off with a chhotu guy, getting a pair of speakers, just for being the
sabse chhotu :P and mind it, he was really really chhotu, just 1.5 years old.
At that moment, I was just singing the song,”Give me some sunshine, give
me some rain, give me another chance, I wanna grow up once again.“ Agli
baar, sabse chhotu award toh fir apna hi hai. J
The next award was for the largest
family attending the meet. I kept wondering, why they need to ask that
question, since each one of us qualified for that award. Each one of us was
from the Indiblogger family. But well, I was not heard of during the judgement
process. Ek aur award reh gea. :P
A couple of more awards and then
came up the Number game. Choosing a number from 1-11 and getting the prize meant
for it in the sheet with the Master of Ceremony. Fir se bad luck, whichever
number we chose, somebody else got a chance to speak it and well, prize fir se nahi mila koi. Nevertheless, the fun
on trying to get a chance to speak the number was the ultimate one. Zindagi k
tensions gayi bhaad mein, number bolte raho bas. :o
The Number game was succeeded by
the singing part. I just thought, are we supposed to be in an audition for
Indian Idol Junior, but discovered later, Indian Idol Juniors sang much better
than us. Anyways, the fun quotient was higher here. We were divided into four
groups on the basis of our seating and we had to choose an animal making noise
for our group in the song ‘Old McDonalds hada farm, yaya yaya yaay.. We chose
Zebra and discovered ‘Zebras make boo boo noise.’ We had lions behind us, who
were really roaring, giraffes sitting diagonally to us and were silent. We didn’t
like silent animals and hence, we ordered the chickens to dethrone Giraffes and
take their places. Chickens really made a Kuckoo noise, but while singing the
song, we all thought the chickens had got roasted since they were the most
silent group. After the chickens, it was puppies group and puppies got the
loudest, 2 mics helped them. :p
After the McDonalds song, here it
came ’30 Seconds to Fame.’ We were told that we had to introduce ourselves to
the fellow bloggers in the meet. From previous blogger meet posts I had gone
through earlier, I had known that not everyone gets a chance in it. The
Introvert and sleeping-blogger Simar just kept hoping, mera naam na aaye. And
yeh lo, bomb blast, 3rd name was mine. Well, had to follow rules of
the game. Introduced myself before the fellow bloggers, confessed that the
blogger was on sleep mode and also promised that kumbhkaran nind se jaldi
jaagega. However, it was again good to know about the fellow attendees at the
meet. I got to know the book reviewers (Manjulika), movie reviewers (Mansi,
Murtaza), Tech Bloggers (Prashant), Mommy Bloggers (Naam nahi yaad, apologies),
Photo Bloggers (Kriti), Pro Bloggers (Passey Sir) etc. etc.
In a further series of events,
the sponsor HP took up the stage and introduced their new product, the HP Ink
Advantage printer. While we were attending an amazing meet, the printer was
equally amazing. The lovely lady from HP showed us the features of it, and we
were quite amazed with the quality of printing and going by HP claims, the
economy of printing. We were also introduced for the funnnnnnn part of the
meet, the B’day Party.
We were asked to be in a group of
15 and we had to plan a B’day party with a pre-decided theme. We were being
given around 30 minutes to plan a B’day party. We were asked to give our group
a name and guess what, I proposed our group to be named, Zebra ka Debra. Humne
ek baar agar zebra ko pakad lia, uske baad hum zebra ki b nahi sunte. The group liked it and well, that was our
official name. J We
really took Shahrukh Khan kinda dialogue seriously that ‘Yeh 30 minute tumhari
zindagi k sabse keemti 30 minute honge and inhein tumse koi taaqat nahi cheen
sakti. And here we go, the Time starts now. We got the Circus theme. Yeh
zindagi ek circus hai aur hum is circus k joker, this was all we thought and
started giving shape to our bday party. We were busy filling balloons, making
balloon clowns, getting some fotos clicked ourselves being clowns, decorating
the table, designing the invite etc. etc. apart from lot many other activities
which did not feature ultimately though. The funniest part for us was that we
thought we had to do the b’day party as well during those 30 minutes and we
ultimately had our party majorly over by the time judgement was to be done. No worries on which way the results went, it
was meant to be enjoyed and each one of us enjoyed it to be fullest. Quoting
Kriti here, we had ‘some pure unadulterated fun’.
Zebra ka Debra had taken Vidya
Balan quite seriously when she said, Movies 3 vajah se hit hoti hai,
entertainment, entertainment and entertainment. The fun and entertainment part
was the highlight of Zebra ka Debra circus. J
After finishing our part, we also
had a look at other groups’ performances. Highly innovative, highly decorated,
and highly creative. That are the words I had for them. We had pirates of the
carribean celebrating their bday party, we had the little mermaid in a bday
party, there was a bday party wherein all the planets had also featured in.
With the announcement of bday
party fun time results, we got the return gifts, IndiBlogger Tees and tasty
tasty food.
Had entered in the hall akele
akele and left the hall with many new friends, new experience, great memories
and IndiBlogger tee as well. :p
However, before I sign out, I
just want to sing the Race 2 Song,
“Meri Pehli
Blogger Meet,
jo rahi thi
puri hit..
aur crazy quotient
b tha fit,
it was fun on
our mind.
Mujhe toh teri
lat lag gyi, lag gyi.
Zmana kahe lat
yeh galat lag gyi.
But Mujhe toh teri
lat lag gyi”
Already looking forward for the
next IndiBlogger meet. J
And yes living up to my promise,
the sleeping blogger is back.
P.S. Had no idea to carry a
Digicam with me to capture the fun, so could not use any pics in the post. Anybody
having the meet pics can surely share the pics, would love to retain those
memories. J