My 49 seconds of Fame
IndiBlogger Meet at ‘Namma Chennai” And I was going to miss it? Not at all! 
I was super excited when I received a mail from Indiblogger, about the Chennai Meet which they’d planned, since this was going to be the first time I would be  participating and I made sure I’d made arrangements to see to it that I do not have any prior engagements on the same day. Though I did not know many bloggers from Chennai( Yes, that was before the Meet, Now I know a lot of them from Chennai), I was looking forward to see those whom I’d established contact with and of course, to meet new bloggers and make new friends as well.


I reached there before the event was set to begin and I was surprised to see that people were actually busy with their mobiles than socializing with the fellow bloggers. It was then that I was informed we could use the Wi-Fi and tweet about the meet which was happening then. (We were actually trending on twitter that day. How cool!) And after a few good introductions among ourselves,( with the eminent food bloggers) the much awaited event, began.
The first thing which they mentioned was, Never before had an Indiblogger meet started on time and in fact, It was the first time that people were all on time for the meet. Of course, when one is in Chennai, what less can they expect?  After initial rounds of applause and freebies (I got a laptop skin 🙂 we moved on to the ’49 seconds of fame’, where Bloggers were chosen at random and asked to speak for 49 seconds. It was nice to know the face behind each blog, listen to their interests and what they had to say about their blogs. I made a quick list of what I would speak, if my name were to appear on the screen, I thought of a few points and when I held the mike, I completely forgot about them and managed to do a neat job, sans any stammering.
Talking about this screen, when people registered on entering the hall, our names were displayed on the screen, saying “Ashwini walked in 2 minutes ago”. It made me feel like a celebrity.(Seriously, yes!). Then the Marketing manager and a few others from Tata Motors, took us through the Tata Grande Dicor, about its features and design. In fact, he did mention that they were surprised by the turnout, since they never imagined that bloggers from Chennai would participate with so much of enthusiasm.
Later, when it was time for High Tea(great spread, Coffee was A1), I met Vipul Grover, Anand Arun, Sulaiman Sait, Kaushik and Vishnu. It was such a pleasure talking to them.  We were discussing about bloggers from other states and that is when we were talking about Sujatha, Sahana, Saru, Subhrasis, Anne John, and a few others, whose names we did not know, but we were able to remember their blog names. Funny, how in the blogosphere, you aren’t able to place a person by their name, but by their Blog name and URL. I then met Shashi, I was in touch with him earlier, after he had mailed me about my Open Page Article.

Just when I was done talking with him, there was this Marketing  Manager, who was standing next to be, waiting for his coffee. I introduced myself and said that I would be starting work with TCS from the next month. I could sense a change in his facial expression, and he proudly said “ Welcome to the Tata Family, Ashwini. It is a Big family indeed.” I was feeling great and said I was looking forward to be an integral part of it. He then asked me about what I write in my blogs, and having listened to the conversation I had with Shashi, he asked me what I’d written for the Open Page. I told him all about my blogs and what I write about and that article in particular.Felt nice when someone enquired about my blog with so much of interest.


We were back to the hall, now with a sheet and a sketch to share our blog links with others. It was at this time, when I was roaming about meeting many people and asking for their blog links, that I realized, I had either read most of the blogs before, or I was familiar with the names and the blog names, to a considerable extent.I made so many new friends then. It felt good when people were able to  recognize my name and blog and even took time to appreciate me for it.
My Sheet

We  were then asked to choose one among the discussion forums. Majority of us opted for the No-Agenda group, which was the most happening group there. We showed our Chennai Spirit, we had fun, laughing and playing truth or dare. Everyone took it in the right spirit and carried out the dare given to them. At one point, almost everyone from the other groups where looking at us, wondering what on earth we could be doing, considering the amount of noise we made and the fun we had. It was memorable.

  

 We then proceeded to take a group snap,collected our T Shirts, and we also had a small photo session by ourselves( thanks to Kalyan and to all those who clicked pictures that day and were kind enough to share it with the others later.) and we left Hyatt after what was one the best evening ever, in the lives of the Chennai Bloggers.
Chennai Bloggers @ Indiblogger Meet
Looking forward to the next meet at Chennai.