Bloggerscroak@ BlueFrog

The Venue was The  Blue Frog at Mehrauli a pilgrimage for the Indibloggers on the hot Sunday afternoon in New Delhi yesterday 14 Apr. Till the previous day I was in two minds to travel all the way but one SMS from a blog friend Anukriti changed it all. I had never met any of the friends, I had earned in my last one and a half year of foray into the brave new world of the blogs. An hour long journey by metro was preferable to drive in the soaring mercury of Delhi’s unbearable heat. The time flew in company of this wonderful friend as we arrived the venue 20 minutes ahead of the schedule, opposite the historic iconic Qutab Minar.

The venue- Blue Frog , New Delhi

The stage was set for the Blog Leela ( akin to Ramlila and Raas Lila *) to commence and what followed next was a bonanza for the blog fraternity, A welcome address, followed with introduction of the new bloggers in the psychedelic  setting of the dimly lit pub where the best of the blog world minds met. An unusual setting which if Harivansh Rai Bachhan the great poet,  if alive today would have felt proud of . How right was the poet when he had said:

मुसलमान औ' हिन्दू है दो, एक, मगर, उनका प्याला,
एक, मगर, उनका मदिरालय, एक, मगर, उनकी हाला,
दोनों रहते एक न जब तक मस्जिद मन्दिर में जाते,
बैर बढ़ाते मस्जिद मन्दिर मेल कराती मधुशाला!

 (Translated: Hindu and Muslims are different but share the a same  goblet, liquor and bar.They never live together in their places of worship as these places divide them. A bar is the only place where they both live in harmony)

 A Literary meet at Madhushala( A Liquor bar)!!

Goodies were doled out by the organizers Microsoft and Indiblogger in form of surprise gifts ranging from Blue Tooth Mouse, Cash Vouchers and even a kiss from the Organizer!( though there were no takers for the same)!



Two Minutes of glory

The afternoon rolled on with a marketing blitz from Microsoft promoting Office 365 singing paeans of the special features especially for bloggers like Cloud Computing and backup, Parallel editing feature and synchronizing and updating their blogs, be it on their domain names, Blogger or Wordpress! The interactive session was interesting with questions being hurled from the audience. The only thing that came between the beer and eats now, was a session from the Airtel , the cosponsors with Microsoft. The team tried to hard sell the special plan for the entrepreneur promising them of best offer which would cost no more than three movies a month or equivalent to eating a burger at McDonalds every day. While Airtel tried to woo the customers the connectivity of their network behaved erratically akin to an aircraft hitting the airpocket every now and then making the ride bumpy.

The Indi Minds- Spot your favorites

During the Beer Break many of the attendees tried desperately to grab the ‘veggie dishes’ due to the ongoing ‘Navratras’( Nine days when even die hard non vegetarians turn to eating grass). The sponsors arranged a few games to test the brawn of the youngsters to make them do sit ups and push ups to earn ‘cash vouchers’. The time was perfect to network with dozens of bloggers and exchange their blog IDs and relate to the names which one just otherwise saw in the written media!

Post break out session, the Blue Tooth network became ‘Live’ and the organizers asked participants to send out tweets about the features of Microsoft Office 365 which impressed them most, to judge the best ones on the spot for awards.

Anukriti walked away with the enviable prize of ‘Nokia Lumia 820’ Smartphone, for the best tweet. It was a fitting finale to bring down the curtains to the lovely event.

Priya, Manjulika and the winner Anukriti with Nokia Lumia 820

 *- Ram Lila and Raas Leela are the stage enactments of the mythological Ramayana and Lord Krishan’s love saga every year all over the country

 PS_:1.  Images Kind Courtesy Akanksha Dureja/Indiblogger

        2. The event was a memorable one in meeting so many young and experienced bloggers whose names would need another post .