My first ever Bloggers' Meet

Pleasant surprises are not limited to only fairy tales, they do occur in life. The point is when they suddenly come in front of you, are you ready for them? Do you embrace them or avoid? Do you make hay while the sun shines in all its glory or do you simply watch while the opportunity passes by in front of your gleamy eyes? There is nothing right or wrong, do as it suits you. Most important is whatever you do, never regret.

Fortunately for me, before my challenge to myself of writing one blog every day for 30 days could start appearing more like a liability than fun, I got this invitation for attending a bloggers’ meet, courtesy Indiblogger. As sometimes stars would match, so did the day and timing perfectly matched with my schedule. Sunday, urgent office work for Monday already almost covered on Saturday itself, no compelling work instructed by wife (rare). In my view, there cannot be a more opportune time to attend a meet of this kind, especially it being the first one. The excitement of first meeting can never be repeated!

While driving from Kharghar to JW Marriott at Juhu, on roads pleasantly devoid of traffic, I built-up my expectations from this event. I started imagining participating in a very elite event, with other bloggers being like me, we forming a great community through our interaction, I picking-up tips and learning from other bloggers, etc. Almost suddenly I found myself at the gates of Marriott. The security guard asked me to open the boot of my car and it was as if I came out of a deep slumber.

Fast forward, met whole lot of new faces, men and women, boys and girls, part-time bloggers (like me) and full-time too. Registration done, into a nicely decked-up ballroom, introduction round of first time attendee on a voluntary basis, I shared mine. Introduction of the star of the event and there comes celebrity chef Vikas Khanna! Girls and some ladies went crazy in no time, some guys were enamoured too. Vikas recently signed with PepsiCo to be their brand ambassador for healthy eating and as part of this, he had come to launch the campaign for Quaker oats at #QuakerBowl. He charmed the audience in his unique style of being a down-to-earth celebrity for an hour or so. Incidentally Nishant (elder brother of Vikas) and I are batch mates from PEC Chandigarh (class of ’92). Also Vikas did his HM from Manipal where my son Aman is studying is 1^st year of Media & Communication. When I mentioned these to Vikas, to my surprise he paid a due attention, made me speak to Nishant through his PR and also shared his initiative of opening a museum on ‘Kitchens of India’ at Manipal. Finally when two handsome men posed for the camera, the whole ballroom was watching! I found him quite energetic, a great entertainer, yet quite humble, given his stature today. I was wondering if all great people are like this.

The event culminated with soup tasting and guessing the ingredients (incl. Quaker – a no brainer), a cooking contest with we all of around 100 bloggers divided into ten teams (no wonder, it was sponsored by Quaker) followed by a lunch with recipes having Quaker in them.

While the whole event was far from my expectations, it was fun to be with a community buzzing with excitement, almost all of them proud of being bloggers, but more for having got an opportunity to spend time and take a selfie with Vikas Khanna!