Ambipur
Indiblogger Meet , Delhi, July 2013
Mail notification beep on my phone waked me
up, I prayed “All should be going well with code deployed to the production” in
anxiety, I immediately checked the mail. My thick fingers never let me click on
the right point on my touch screen phone, and BAU I landed into personal inbox
instead of official one. I don’t know why, but the Indiblogger mail caught my
attention, and I gave a thought to read it, instead of usual practice of
sending it to archive.
Have received couple of Indiblogger meet
notifications before, and have always ignored the mails, thinking “Kuch
bhi Time pass karnegey”, and the sponsor company executives will come
and discuss blah, blah. I was pretty sure that the boring slides will bounce on
the wall and I don’t even have hairs on my head to pull off. Then I read
through the line, “is it free?” this line caught my attention and I buzzed, “tumhari
boring baatein toh mein paise leke bhi nhi sunoonga”. Office presentations
and meetings are already enough from Monday to Friday to suck your blood, and I
can’t think of one more such session on weekend as well.
Next what caught my attention was Lunch. So
the crux here is FREE lunch at HYATT, unbelievable. This is contradictory to
what I have learned in decade of my corporate career that there is no free
lunch. Are these guys NUTS? I am sure these corporate asses must have put it on
some weekday and would expect me to come missing my office. Bloody I am blogger
by choice and not by profession that I can make it an official event to attend.
Again, I have been given left, right and center, it is on 6th July which is
Saturday.
“Nipun, you are dreaming, as it is midnight
and all this is seriously too much” passed my mind and I rubbed my eyes and
confirmed that I am awake and not at all dreaming, but then also, I wasn’t
ready to believe, after all a pessimist in me was not accepting it. I thought
lets register, even if it is a dream also then let me attend it in dream only,
and also till they don’t ask about my Credit Card details, it is fine.
I started with the registration process
from my phone only, and what???No more surprises please!!! Now they are asking
for my Tshirt size, so they are going to give me one that as well.
1:30
pm, 6th July, Saturday:
I in a celebrity style, took my car in
front of HYATT, and pulled down the glass and confirmed “Indiblogger event yehi hai na?”
The guy came to me with a card in his hand and his body language said, as he
was offering me Valet parking. But to my respect, as soon as I stepped out of
the car, guy said “Sir, valet Parking is for 100 Bucks, wahan aagey MCD ki parking hai,
kya aapko gadi deni hai”.
Passing thoughts ... %%*$%$%^& (I hope
you can interpret as certain words to be censored on public blogs)
I the Head of stinginess, called up my
friend working in GAIL, next building and requested him for free car parking.
After all it is Government’s parking and I got it constructed, after all it was
my tax money which was used to pay the contractor.
Entered the Hall, and everyone was standing
out in groups of 2 to 6, waiting for the entry and registration. All age groups
from kids of 15 years old to Octogenarians could be seen. Gosh! I don’t know
even a single person out here, how will I spend four hours. No offence to
anyone, but everyone was looking a different variety or sample, “do I
also look so ajeeb, like all these? No yaar, tu toh smart hai, you have an
attitude, I consoled myself.”
Ambience was good, and it has to be good,
it was HYATT, and no other street side restaurant. Slowly I started feeling
good, it was not the ambience effect, nor the confectionery placed, but...any
guesses? C’mon think like a guy. Some real beautiful faces, to die for, no I
never believed in that, agar marr hi gaye toh beauty toh Padosi k pass reh
jaayegi, so always never say die attitude.
But honest confession, “Love at First
Sight” faces and beauty took my heart away. I want to flirt with that girl in
pink, no no... that one in white is looking divine, but she is bit
fat....whoooo, that in purple, what a beauty...ahhh, thats not done, she is
wearing an engagement ring.
I was just deciding on for the girl, with
whom I am in love, and going to be in for next few hours and heard the voice
“Please come from this side, and enter your registered mail id”. My past
experience with beautiful voice is an ugly face. So turned around in
disappointment, but again god was on my side today. I saw two very beautiful
faces, “Saala, fir se love at first sight ho gaya, ab kya karoon? Kissey hua
hai,” I am again confused.
Went to one table already hosting two
decent looking guys, I could easily tell for one of them looking at his face,
that he is a Software Professional. Yes, “shakal per hi chipka hota hai” and he
confirmed stating “I work for CSC, Noida”. Two more guys joined my table, and then
two girls, I thanked god “Kuch toh charm hai table par”.
Please, Please, Please don’t form any wrong
image about my character; I don’t know anyone till now and all strangers, so
imagine what thoughts will pop up my mind. I can bet even if you would have
been in my shoes, you also won’t be thinking about the economic downturn world
has faced, or how Lehman Brothers could have avoided bankruptcy in 2008
recession. I am making honest confessions.
Finally someone took the mike and started
with the program. Wow!!! It can’t be better than this, no formality at all. The
start of the event washed away all my perceptions, the guy hosting was doing a
wonderful job, I don’t remember his name but seriously impressed by his
diction. What a wonderful speaker. Then came the guy Nihar(if I remember his
name correctly) with a wonderful head bang event. I was again jealous of him,
the guy had long hairs and the way he was bouncing his head was amazing, on top
of that the type of energy he sprang across the audience, he could make me 110
kgs guy dance, so Hats off to you Nihar.
Yaar, they are distributing gifts as well,
the girl who bounced her head well has won a Bluetooth headset for her.
Actually I might be wrong she might have won something else, though with every
prize they distributed, they announced name of chroma or any corporate
sponsoring that. But they distributed so many gifts, that it is tough to
remember that who won what. I am sure they must have looted some store a night
before. Prize ranged from 500 bucks in cash to Bluetooth headset to Mobile
phones to Playstation to smart watches, list was endless. Most Prized gift was
a cookie and bowl of sauce.
I loved the introduction part; I was the
one before the event who was most scared of it. It was not a convectional one,
but was done on a very random and interesting basis.
“Yaar, kya smart log exist kartey hai duniya mein” I said to myself. I was literally impressed with the kind of work
people are doing, the level of intellect they have, salute to the spirits I
witnessed that day.
She is a doctor and she is not servicing patients,
I am sure you must be thinking, then what a waste, but she is servicing
humanity. She has been behind rehabilitating sex workers and given her cushy
job of a doctor, where she could have made millions.
That guy has a blog and helping people
solving community problems, this is not my personal problems, which most people
like us say and move ahead.
I got inspired by this girl. She is a live
example of make your weakness your strength. The girl started writing a blog,
to overcome the fear she had for writing. She always used to fear, if I write I
will make grammatical errors, incorrect language and will be away from other
technicalities of writing. But she rose over all this and wow man, she is a
blogger.
God, I will go mad, what a talent under one
roof, idiot of me who has always missing such meets, just for the sake of
dating someone so useless.
This poetess very beautifully introduced
her blog and recited a “Kavita” in Hindi. The way she
recited, my love for the mother tongue increased many folds, and felt bad about
how we ruin it using slangs.
And now my favorite, yes, Lunch Time!!! Need not say about the food, I never ate so
much chicken biryani in my life. I pushed myself from 105 kgs to 110 kgs in 40
minutes of lunch time. Amazing things won’t stop for me today; I suddenly
bumped into man, heading for biryani. “Hey” he said to me, which was quite
decent. I instead of him, would have said it like “Mote, bhookhar, mein bhi line
mein hoon, araam se aa”. This guy is no other than whose blog I follow once
in a while, so I immediately recognized him, and since then we had a bond of
friendship. We exchanged cards at the end of the event, and what??? He is my neighbor.
He lives next door to me, this is seriously funny.
Post lunch was another new event. The best
thing about this event was that the guys kept us engaged in one activity or the
other and kept on distributing prizes.
Now, most of the guys were not sitting at
the original seats, and networking was on the peak. There was one more reason
to this, as now some corporate from ambipur took the charge. Though the lady
tried her best to make it fun and interactive, she couldn’t meet the standards
set by our original host, hats off to you man, I am sorry I forgot your name.
This new girl at my seat, she introduced
herself as she like to bitch about. Also she has a blog name on these lines. She
is a fantastic girl, very clear in mind; I was impressed by her personality and
much more when I went through her blog. She wrote, nothing out of the world,
just “bitching” about what she feels, this is how she described her blog. But, rather
I should say these are honest confessions or thoughts about whatever she feels
about the things coming her way in life.
Now, everyone is wearing their creative
hats. Each of four fragrance distributed has been formed into two teams in
total of eight teams. Each team has to perform a skid. And now was the time,
when we were introduced to Smelly cats, White doggy doing white potty, AmbiMan,
Ambi Rajnikant. I also got to know, that ambipur is not only the Room freshner,
but also a ZombieCure . Zombies were turned into normal humans on spray of ambipur.
“C’mon
yaar fainkney ki bhi had hoti hai, mana ki event ambipur ne sponser kiya hai
iska yeh matlab thode hai ki Ambipur doggy ki potty ko bhi fragrant bana dega”.
I was ROFL, gosh yeh kisi ko soojh bhi kaise sakta hai. People came up with any
wild idea one can imagine to promote ambipur. I am sure the creators of
ambipur, would never be able to think of so many advantages of it. In fact,
there might be fight going on in heaven between the gods and the demons, that
why we fought over amrit after Samundra Manthan, asli cheez toh yeh
hai.
Event organisers were amazing chaps, all so
cheerful, energetic, humble and co-operative. I don’t know the name, but I am
fan of the girl clicking photographs, I know, what going in your bloody mind,
please clean up. I am saying so, because she clicked a real good pic of mine.
The events were amazing like best pose,
best tweet, best pic, person sporting funky T-shirt, your lucky number and many
more; I don’t even remember all as they just wanted to throw away gifts, so
created any contest on earth. I don’t remember the winning entries, except for
the best pic. Obviously, the pic of a shit won the best pic contest. I can’t
think of anything smellier than that.
Greedy cells of me thinking, “Yaar,
T-shirt ka size toh liya tha, but abhi tak di kyu nahi, ab toh group pic bhi
click kar li hai”. And there is
a counter at the end, yes! It has that Tee, wow! White one, my personal
favorite. Suddenly “yaar kahin yeh substandard size ki hogi toh fit nahi aayegi”
sad thoughts came to me, as I have been often victim due to my Big Build, and I
never admit that I am fat.
10:30
am, 7th July, Sunday:
“Idiot how you can think of substandard size”, I said to myself, hurray!!!...Tee-shirt is a standard one and fits
me. I love you Indiblogger.
