(Cross posted from The Voice in My Head).
They say ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’ and many mighty ones – who dual brave knights of all colors on the wonderful world wide web – showed up for the first Mumbai Bloggers Meet Up of the Year at the Bandra Carter Rd’s Cafe Coffee Day (which is a delightful place off the lovely sea coast).
It was also the first Blogger Meet Up I’ve attended though I’ve been blogging for over 3 years now. Consequently I was not really sure what to expect & it felt a bit like I was heading to a blind date 
When I reached the place I was in another dilemma – had no clue whom I was looking for! Asked the staff if they knew of any **ahem, do I feel like a geek** “bloggers who were meeting up” & though one of them gave me “m’am, everyone here is meeting up” with the “HELLO??!” look, I was escorted out to a set of four tables on the outside.
Pretty much immediately recognised Akshay (from his profile pic on his blog) though he looks (and is) centuries younger than I thought he was, considering his brilliant photography – which proves that age isn’t a barrier for anything anymore!
Scott Rafer made it to the table almost the same time as I did, so we got common introductions to all who were at the table when we reached.
I was at this point sitting between Scott and Akshay, just opposite Aditya. Our end of the table seemed to be filled with brilliantly techy people who were talking a language I couldn’t understand (let alone try to speak) and pretty much everything said was gloriously floating over my head.
For Example: They were discussing among other things: Podcasts, Audio Blogs, Ryze (and honestly, I initially thought they were discussing RICE “Rice is very popular here in India”, sue me), RSS feeds, some dude Mr X (whose name and surname they all knew so well as if he were Gandhi) who was (is?) in the Bahamas and sending feeds to Pune to do #*&$^*$^#$*_#_@#@&*
HUH????
Ok, just smile Melody.
While all this conversation was over my head, the inside of my head is thinking, “I’m a writer, I blog. I have no clue what all this techy stuff is about and I don’t really want to”. But in the meanwhile, very normal looking girls (i.e. not geeky) like Charu and Dina seem to be brilliantly informed about all these things I’m just hearing about. Feel like a dumb blonde minus the blonde bit.
Time to migrate 
The other end of the table has me sighing in relief. Firstly there’s Dilip, who (I find out from his blog later) is a published writer, a very down-to-earth-kurta-wearing father of two – which he generously brought along to the meet up (awwww, cho cweet!!) along with wifey. Wifey turns out to be old friend of my sis who’ve I met a couple of years back (ah! someone known, at last!).
Also present are (somewhat quiet) Salma & pretty bubbly Naina (who ordered a mouth watering looking chocolate doughnut, which she didn’t share, shame shame)
Right next to me was the very quiet (& let me add, sweet) Vijay . I asked him why he was so quiet & he just smiled at me. I later checked out his blog & was not very surprised to read the tagline “No questions asked, No answers given” 
Veer came a little later, along with Vinu, who was armed with digicam (upon which everyone with cams got into frenzied action). It may be argued that I was principle ‘phototakeouting’ advocate, but we shall not get into that right now What matters is that pics were taken. And pics were promised all around (finally got one & posted here).
Joining us a little while later (almost on my way out, since I left early for the prayer meeting) was Saket and Sakshi who unfortunately had her arm in a sling after having had a nasty fall (get well soon!).
All in all, a good meeting. I enjoyed it all (techy stuff included) and was especially happy to meet so many new bloggers I hadn’t even encountered online (Akshay & Sakshi’s blogs are the only ones of the lot I read).
New friends, new blogs & new beginnings in the new year.
I’ll toast my coffee to that.
