Barcamp Mumbai was hastily arranged event for me. I had wanted to attend an event like this since long time and then from a ex-twitter follower came to know of the barcamp in Mumbai on 17th Jan 09. Instantly registered for same. I had a bit of my apprehensions on the same as last event I attended in June 2007 in Pune was flooded by sponsors and it lost the purpose what it was meant to be. Never mind those were sunny days for economy, not so sunny for me though, the sponsors lined in for sponsorship and it was evident in the superb lunch we had.
If I would like to go to Mumbai. Mumbai after 11/26. Sounded scary. Yet I made up my mind on Friday that I would go. Though had some questions on if I would reach on time and would it serve any purpose, I started for catching bus to Mumbai at Aundh, the best place in Pune. To my luck, everything fell in place. Got an auto on time, got an innova to take me to Mumbai and I opted for it with doubts in mind. Expressway par bahut accidents hote he J. Shelled out 250 bucks and took the front seat , scary even more J
Reached Mumbai on time at 10 AM. The venue was Windsor Building, Microsoft office sponsored by ibibo.com. This was at Kaleena, place where I stayed for 2.5 months in 2004. Horrible place. Dirty and crowded. I dreaded how I stayed there for 2 months.
When I reached very few people had gathered in. Slowly the caravan badhta gaya and log judte gaye. Bore bhi hote gaye, but enjoy bhi karte rahe…I was silent and a bit apprehensive.
After the round of introductions, the next 20 minutes were for deciding the sessions. It was unconfrence. Meaning everything decided on the fly or say on runtime (IT slang). So quite a few sessions were lined up. To start with there was a blogger named H. Iyer or Ahem (his blogger name) who had a session on “Blogging in crisis”. He sounded compassionate and narrated the harrowing experience of 11/26. He had started a helpline for helping out people in need and then he said he received lot of calls owing to the help. He has a blog on the same. I don’t know how much difference it made or makes. But what feeling I got was, that helpline was specific to Taj and Trident victims. Of course they were victims as well, but they were elitists. First time the folks from upper society were hit by terror, so a lot of noise was being made by the so called celebrities. I asked him the question “why didn’t you mention that CST victims called you up”? He gave a straight bat answer “he didn’t expect CST victims’ relatives to go watch the TV and call him”. Social differences ? Just cos CST victims were normal common man – the most common Indian citizen who grinds in the daily life ? And then I asked him “why didn’t he target cities like Delhi or Ahmadabad or Bangalore or Jaipur or for that matter 7/11?” Very unfortunate thing to happen in India. We don’t see anybody as human – be it a victim or a normal human being. We have lot of spectacles to see him – caste , religion, sub caste, region, language, town, city, village, uffff…..
And for the rest of the day HI was pretty much active. He didn’t have any qualms in accepting that he was a gay and the experience that led him to be gay. Alright GAY rights. Everybody has his own life, his own way to live. Anyways that doesn’t mean I am anti gay or whatever. I m neutral to this. His life, his way of living, more so his choice. I am a big believer in letting a person to be him untill he doesnt encroach anybody else. Unfortunately not many believe that. And I dont have any grudges against Harish. if anybody propogates that, may be he / she does it on her own for his / her crooked interests, I m not privy to that...
The next session was the best of the lot. A guy called Thakkar, Abhishek Thakkar just rocked with his witty and super humorous narration of his blogging journey starting from a normal blog to a podcast to gupshup to owning his own domain. He spoke of how he started blogging to woo a girl only to end up seeing her being married off to someone else, how he was busted by his parents over his blogs and then he shared dos and don’ts for avoiding getting caught by your friends and parents whom you don’t want to read ur blog J. He was just amazing and he got max applause from everybody. He lightened the tense and a bit serious mood set in by Iyer ’s session…
There were a few sessions on blog security by Skyn3t and why Pappu cant blog by a blogger named Dinesh Soni….. Blog security was a technical session and concentrated on bypassing the blocked urls and surf through PROXIES. Useful for people in countries like UAE or middle east where lot of internet censorship is in place. The blue ribbon you see on my blog is a result of this session. The non techie bloggers found this session too techie for them and they just passed on. Soni ’s session was a bit before lunch, so pizzas were smelling in and everybody wanted to go n grab them. Session was alright where he listed some reasons why few bloggers vanish and can’t put forth the interest in the blogs for longer time. Some of them being the “following the fad”, “blog wars”, “no comments” etc.
Another session was on “traditional media vs. blogs” by DNA journalist “Arcopol” who kept referring me as “Mr. Infosys”. It was a good session with people chipping in against the Hindi news channels like “Aaj tak “ and “India TV” (need I say more?). People concluded finally that even if blogs gained prominence, the news papers and traditional news on serious news channels would always be primary importance. A blog at best in current shape is a reactionary view. You won’t switch onto a blog to find the “Breaking news”, although a Twitter could be a source for Breaking news stuff. More on twitter later J
Lunch was a longer one and I wasn’t in a groove to socialize with many people. The bloggers there were not suited to my genre. I was really expecting to meet up Ria in the session, but she wasn’t well and so she cudnt attend it. Rest of them, I didn’t feel any connect and I was happy to be back to my laptop once the pizzas and coffee was done with.
Post lunch, the first session was by Rohan on “truth through blogs” something similar to that. Was good session with topic being discussed not my genre. I didn’t participate and rather kept updating the twitter. Twitter was a huge hit in the camp and people had as many as 100-300 followers. I stand very low at 9-12 which keeps alternating in this range. I am not much into twitting. But then it’s another form of “social media” . What this term means, I don’t know.
Ideasmithy aka Ramya took the next session on “Blogging identity”. Well she was a fashion journo, so had lot of style and mannerisms. Cannot put it in words, but then how do few celebrities react or talk, this was evident here. Very touchy and on smallest of thing would go all out in expressing her gratitude to even a slightest of feel good remark. She was a “self proclaimed urban feminist and a male basher”. A mention of it and I stopped connecting to her. Wow, what do you get on bashing the opposite species ? Hits on the blog ? Not really!! She hardly gets 3-4 comments on her so called “bashing male” posts. She narrated a story when she was proclaimed to be a married women in a story ran on DNA by some journalist and she was quick to brand the print journalists as “spoiled brat”. She also said how a colleague of hers was on a mission to find her real identity. I guess she would sue me on typing in her real name. But then who bothers. I detest this kind of bloggers. They actually kill the spirits of blogging. They use blogging as tool of social networking and promoting their brand of thoughts. Rotten thoughts I must say. Now when she was giving her session, another Page 3 kinda blogger was chipping in with her comments on SRK – Salman Khan feud. Now who the heck in the world bothers about what Salman Khan said or why on earth the 2 fought ? They would be present in every blogger meet and just would hog the limelight. All you find on their blogs is the stories of “page 3 stuff“, “bitching” and stuff like that.
Priyanka took the next session on “monetizing the blog”. Was strictly an ok session, in the end she was promoting her own company “inkfruit.com”. Nobody I know of my readers blogs for money or I m not aware of. Seriously for me blogging for money is no-no. I detest this kinda sessions too.
In the end I was exhausted and bored to core. I wanted to run away. In the meantime between sessions, I kept talking to Nidhi and few others. Wrote a few posts on “Arm Ball”, my cricket blog. And installed “Live writer” from Microsoft. It’s a good tool and Hardik explained it in a better way. Irony was, he is a MS employee and was sessionizing on a “MS product” so lot of hits were on him. But then I m a Microsoft fan and I find products from MS good. Be it Vista or Word or even XP. I liked Live Writer and would soon use it to post my blogs on.
By 445 I was done in and slipped out to catch a bus back to Pune. The idea was good and the times showed up a reflection. Just one sponsor in this tough times. Just that the content was bit more serious and had more participation from “normal kinda” bloggers like me and my readers rather than those “wannabe celebrities” of the blog world. There would always be a question mark on the who is the real blogger? People like you and me who blog for a cause or the breed who crops up in this kinda blogger meets and try to hog the centre stage with their idea of blogging. In my opinion they just kill the blogging spirits. I didn’t feel a connect to what Ideasmithy blogged.
Concluding word : Twitter is a huge thing. Like Orkut was in 2007, Facebook in 2008, its twitter in 2009. People are on a mission to coax others to be their followers, even if they know them or not. Just be a follower and show up the fame by the number of followers you get J. For that matter, I am on twitter too by the name of sam_2.
