Delhi Flogger’s Meet – Single Edition

[Note: If you are a blogger and are in Delhi on 19th Feb, Please join us for this version of offline blogger's meet. ]  

What?   Delhi Flogger's Meet – Single Edition.
When?  Sunday, 19th Feb'2006, 4.30 5 pm Onwards.
Where? Jantar Mantar, near CP (we can later walk to any of the eateries nearby)
Why?    read on….

Last Sunday I attended my yet another blogger’s meet, which also celebrated the Second anniversary of Blogger Meets in Delhi. This meet gave me an opportunity to meet a very few old, and a lot many new and refreshing blogger souls. Interestingly one of the bloggers, Abhishek who spoke passionately about blogging as a marketing media, also noted that all those who attended the meet were single, and got away with cleverly marketing his single status :p 
Mayank, who was among the new bloggers that I met during the meet has covered the meet in his own style.
Others who attended were Nikhil, Yogesh, Twilight Fairy, Sanjay, Rusty, Amit Gupta, Snigdha, Kreeti, Asheeth, Sanjukta and Swagat.

Now blogging has always been good to me, it has helped me discover my writing skills (or the lack of it), it has made me write poetry – a sin that I had never committed before, and most importantly it has helped me build my biggest asset – my friends. So I thought why not host a blogger’s meet, I have done that before and I have always enjoyed it.

Even as I was thinking of it, some disturbing thoughts came back to haunt me – of how in not so distant past, our small blogging community was mindlessly made to be divided on the name of 'Delhi Bloggers Meet'. Two so called blogger ’groups’ who could not host their own meets, without an ill feeling towards another group, and all the drama that followed.

I have been part of one group from a long time now, and have attended most of the meets they have convened. Also I am tele/mail-friends with originator of the other group, and I have always failed to understand why there was so much resistance for allowing two of these groups to co-exist peacefully.

Enough number of bytes have traveled the world wide web in the form of mails/blog posts/comments etc on this issue, and I’ve been an occasional contributor to them – initially trying to broker peace and finally giving in by venting all my anger towards the mindless debate. It also saw a lot of veterans and initiators of one group getting frustrated by the turn of events and disassociating themselves from any of blogger groups. I guess they saw that the intent with which they started or became part of the group was not being served.

So what I am trying to say is now when I am thinking of hosting a blogger meet, I am a little scared of this meet being branded of belonging to a particular group. And the fact remains that I am member of one of these groups, (thankfully the other group does not have any concept of membership). So how do I do it without offending any of the groups? Coz I really don’t want to be the reason of another stupid debate because of the meet that I am planning to host.

I don’t want it to be of this group or of that group. I want it to be a meeting of pure simple bloggers. Period.

But how do I do it? MixedBag offered me a solution.

I have decided to call it Delhi Flogger’s Meet. It’s happening on Sunday 19th February, 4.30 5 pm onwards. The exact venue is yet to be decided, but mostly it will be somewhere in CP,  The Venue is Jantar Mantar, near CP as this place is centrally located and easily accessible by road and Metro. Keep looking for more precise details. As a friend informs:

"jantar mantar would have space to sit and discuss or whatever. its not as big as one might imagine but kinda neat and affords decent photo-ops with people around, as well. and the best part's that it has a few interesting eateries within a walking distance. "

It’ll be an one time event and not an ongoing one. If any Delhi Flogger’s Meet takes place after this one, it should not be associated with me (unless I choose to get myself associated with it at that time).

It’s fashionable to have an agenda for meet’s to give them some air of sincerity, so the agenda for this meet will be – (a) How beneficial is it to post erotic pictures on your blog to draw traffic? (b) Yumnum strategy – how to be an undercover blogger? (c) How to find a boy/girl friend through your blog?

HELL NO. There is no agenda folks. Just join us, be yourself and feel free to talk about whatever you can. Whether you are a serious blogger (like shivam), an elite blogger (no offence dude, but you came to my mind :p), a celebrity blogger (compulsive confessor), phunny blogger (nikhil), occasional blogger (harneet), outta city blogger (Diya, Saket), Woman Blogger (Priya), Journo Blogger (Monica, Jabberwock) or a crap blogger (like ME :D) you are all welcome to join in and share the fun that we are gonna have.  

Nikhil, I hope you don’t have a copyright on this name (Floggers Meet), and if you do puhleeeez sue me, for it might help me become the next Gaurav Sabnis of Indian blogosphere, and I might even get a mention on DesiPundit, I might end up getting more traffic on my blog, and it might prompt indibloggers to start “the most controversial yet worthless blog of the year award” just to recognize me :D

Or on a nicer, sober and realistic note, Nikhil please allow me to borrow steal this name from your blog post. I very sincerely want bloggeres of all kinds to come and attend the meet. Lets get over the groupism and celebrate the Joy and Pride of being a Blogger.

Please spread the word. Hope to see you there.