Date: Jan 31, 2005
Venue: Barista, St Marks Road

And so finally, we decided to have a Bangalore bloggers meet. It’s been pending for a while. The idea had come up when we met Suman at Madman’s restaurant last month. What about a few more of us meeting, we had asked each other then.

It was possibly a pretty significant date – last day of the first month of 2005! We sent out a few invites. Nearly everyone accepted, except 2-3 bloggers we couldn’t get a response from/or couldn’t make it.

Some of us already knew each other. A couple of bloggers found out they worked together. And a few others were new to us and to each other. Like it’s usually the case with bloggers, it didn’t take too much time to break the ice. In attendance (in alphabetical order):
Adel
Anurag
Arun
Deepak
Madman
Meenaks
Muthu
Sandeep
Suman (He also runs Tsunami Help India)



From left to right: Muthu, Adel, Arun, Deepak, Suman, me, Sandeep, Madman, Meenaks

While it was an opportunity to meet up with a few bloggers, we also wanted to get together and find out how we as a community can take up the cause of the tsunami affected areas, a little more seriously. A few of us had already travelled to Cuddalore district last month, and after seeing with our own eyes, the devastation caused, we decided that we could do much more.

As bloggers, we also create our own networks, and I believe these are quite powerful and can be use effectively to reach out to a wider cross section of people. Adopting a village and interacting directly to help them is one idea we are exploring currently. We got some valuable suggestions on how to take it forward, and besides setting up a site, we will be coming up with the actual plan in the next few days. We’re hoping more bloggers (outside of Bangalore too, and especially in Chennai) can join in the cause and use their unique personal networks (blogging and otherwise) to spread the word around in India, and overseas.


Coffee and conversation: Muthu, Adel, Deepak, Suman and Madman

The conversation veered from blogs, hosting, and naturally turned to the topic of plagiarism, which has been quite a debated one of late. Deepak had a few tales to tell and pictures to show from his recent Hampi trip. Adel gave us some inputs from his side about his visit to AID India in Chennai and his meeting with Nanda. Muthu was pretty silent (apparently, he’s abstaining, so I am presuming it also includes conversation :). Meenaks joined in a little late and was pretty silent too (he might be following Muthu’s lead, methinks). Madman, as usual, proved how he got his first and middle name – i.e. Madman Sceptic Menon. Suman gave us a background of some of our upcoming plans.

It was an enjoyable 2 hours and finally at about 9.30 pm, when we were down to a body count of 4, we decided to grab a quick bite. Madman, Arun, Muthu and I walked over to Koshy’s for dinner. After smileys (round deep-fried banana somethings), crum-fried and roast chicken, organic mushrooms, lots of orange juice, and a couple of drinks, we decided to call it an evening at about 10.30 pm.

Till we meet again 🙂

Meet the Bloggers (Pics courtesy: Madman)

38 thoughts on “Coffee and Conversation: Bangalore Bloggers Meet

  1. the fact that you guys write…that’s it? that’s the big thing about blogs? didn’t it start in america? start something new.

  2. Good to see that u guys meet like Chennai bloggers. Do you guys know any blogger in Pune, so that we can meet over here. I am just visiting Chennai blogers and Banalore bloggeers blog daily but I have no idea abt Pune bloggers.

  3. potti: seeing you after a long time 🙂 he was abstaining, as I mentioned, that might be the reason!

    pxlnerd/noor: will do…

    ammani: will do 🙂

    anurag: same here!

    step to it: actually, that’s not it. we drink a lot of coffee too.

    reflex: you can try this link to find bloggers in your city. also try my indian bloggers list and search for pune. you might get a few more names from there.

  4. Hi Anita

    Pretty nice pictures. Hope something like that happens here in Chicago. I still havent found a single desi blogger from here…After looking up the indianblogger site, found a couple of fellows in and around Chicago. Do you know of any more?

    And why, may I ask, is the email required for a comment? Dont you think people get enough spam from the bots already?

  5. Hey u look different in different pics. I am a friend of Muthu’s and hence landed here. Hope u like him…coz otherwise I am in for trouble. What say Muthu?

  6. Muthu being quiet? That’s like near impossible. He is one of the best party hosts in Chennai. We miss him a lot out here.

    Did he try one of those Jedi things on you guys? Oh, if he hasn’t, you should ask him to, then next time you meet. 🙂

  7. anita,

    all of us (kribs, me, potti n jammy) worked in sify together. it was one big party.

    we all had a blast doin all kindsa (nefarious?)activities like rowin, gamin, cartin, bloggin etc.,. but then, that was then…

    guys, think we all should plan a chennai-bangalore bloggers meet… for ol’ time sakes.

    cheers

    muthu

  8. Hi Anita, my name is also Anita. I am also from India. I am from New Delhi but I am now settled in the USA and married to someone from here.

    Do you want to be friends?

    Anita

  9. muthu: same here. but we obviously didn’t see your more ‘flamboyant’ side that day 🙂

    anand: i am not sure about chicago, but you can check the indian bloggers lists and blogstreet, and other blog directories to check if there are any chicago bloggers there. and the email address is required by mt comments, so sorry about that!

    jax: I thought you were based in Chennai?

    jammy: thanks for dropping by! he was very quiet but hopefully we’ll get to see his more talkative side soon!!

    kribs: will do next time! the jedi thing (whatever it is) sounds interesting 🙂

    muthu: i can only imagine when the likes of you (kribs, potti, you) meet. i am sure they were fun times! we already did a chennai-bangalore bloggers meet in january when we went across. we can always get them to come here next! kiruba has been threatening to come here for a long time now…

    sure agnes! are you from bangalore?

    thanks propeller. i am not sure that is a very good idea though 🙂

    madman: what can i say?!

    tamara: and no wonder why they’re so yummy!!

    priya: he migrated here a few months back and is now in the process of becoming a bangalorean. for a few more months at least. though his heart, he says is still in chennai 😉

    hi anita: nice to meet a namesake. what do you do there?

  10. jace: yes, i have wondered about that. i think one reason is that LJ is a more ‘personal journal’ kind of writing and forms its own unique cliques. secondly, LJ has formed pretty well-knit communities already. and usually LJites stick to other JLites. another thing is that if you are on a free account, you can only add other LJ users, which means that the fraternity you hang out with is largely LJ folk. so the mixing is not too much. anyway, that’s a theory!

  11. We have an interesting piece of Sociology right here, LJ users wanting to interact with Blogger users and people adopting a different persona for each community, resulting in lots of personality fragmentation in the process. Most interesting is the parallel between anita’s perception of LJ users and communities in real life. That chick Dina Mehta would love to be all over this thread.

    All said and done, I still demand that you provide weekly updates of your pictures in a “a day in the life of” format.

  12. Hi all,

    Glad to come across this blogging community in Bangalore. A small intro on my side, I’m a building architect by graduation and software architect by profession, working in Accenture

    Looking forward to meet you all sometime…

    My contact details:

    98866 25019

    080 5106 4859

  13. Hello

    I am new to this, im working as business development executive in reputed It company, I am bit confused about my career as of now i have done my BE (E&C) and MBA marketing with 3 years experience, i need to know how to get into new product devlopment preferbly S/W development with my corrent knowladge or is it necessary to go for programming if so lease kindly suggest

    Thanks and Regards

    Jims

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