I wasn’t going to write a post on this. I was going to be polite. Then I read this post on the blog Rising From the Ashes which the guys at Indiblogger had sportingly Tweeted. The lullaby of the Monsoons weren’t working for me. I fired up the laptop.
I waxed eloquent about the Food Bloggers Dinner a couple of night’s back. Got rather carried away and wrote an encyclopedic post. Well that was not all the action on the Blog socialisation front this weekend. There was the Indimum Meet organised by Indiblogger on the unearthly hour of Sunday afternoon. (‘Mum’ stood for Mumbai, not hot moms as some perv suggested)
I reached fashionably late at 2.30 PM. Which is apparently when it all started. I walked the red carpet with the amazingly trim and live wired Agent Green Glass. She was my ride back. She was sleepy, hungry and hungover (her words). So we left soon. She also thought that it was lame to sit there and Tweet about the meet.
I duly Tweeted that.
We caught snatches of messages from our sponsors. And then everyone introduced themselves. Which went largely, “My name is Khan. I am a recovering Blogger”.
We were the bad kids on the last bench. Too old and cynical to take the earnestness around seriously. I speak for myself here when I say ‘old’.
AGG muttered about how cold and hungry she was. Cold was not a problem for me. Like a good Bengali boy I wore a red full sleeve Panjabi and a sando genjee (kurta and vest) below it. Felt like we were in a Star Trek Fans Convention. Guest starring in the Big Bang Theory.
Talking of ‘Bengali boy’, I have a bone to pick with the guy who introduced himself as “My name is Kalyan. I am Bengali. I blog”. Hey, as Mithunda would say, “apoon ka dialogue apoon koi deta hain kya?”.
I dryly told AGG that snacks would be chutney sandwiches. Thirteen years at Mumbai have taught me that any congregation of more than six people involve ‘chutney’ sandwiches here.
But what’s with chutney sandwiches? Growing up in the British county of Calcutta, we had learnt that sandwiches are made with boiled egg pepper and butter, boiled chicken pepper and butter, cheese pepper and butter, tomato cucumbers pepper and butter. You occasionally use just sugar and butter. But never chutney! Chutneys are the stuff grandmoms make with tomatoes, raw mangoes or papayas or pineapples and are meant be had with papad after a meal and before dessert.
What’s this odious Martian green thing which is slobbered over limp bread and served here? No Calcuttan who read The Statesman and Wren and Martin would be caught dead with it. In fact of all the condiments and dips that I have come across, the crushed coriander based green chutney is the most insipid. In fact, while I am being politically correct let me say that my vote goes for the Bengali mustard based Bhaapa Eelish (Hilsa steamed in banana leaves) over the Parsi coriander and coconut chutney based Patrani Machhi (pomfret steamed in banana leaves).
Well the hosts, Sea Princess Hotel, served chutney sandwiches as I had predicted. What’s wrong with serving good old artery clogging, blood pressure inducing butter? If I ever find out who invented chutney sandwiches then I will personally smother a slice of bread with a thick coating of green Wasabi paste and will feed it to this Food War criminal.
Well the chutney sandwich break was the highpoint of the afternoon. I caught up with some Food Bloggers from the previous night. Sunshine Mom, Curry Spice and , the size zero baker. They stuck to each other and during the break hung on to their dear Knife. Ideasmithy was there of course. She had earlier taught me to ‘spread the love’ at Blog Camp. No, nothing lewd. Just link people you mention in a post. Then there was young Chipro from Tony’s Vietnam who came to Mumbai while travelling. Liked it. Decided to stay back. And Keema from Mizhoram. With a name like that he had to feature on Finely Chopped. I was rather tickled when Mahafreed, a young Iraani journo, came up to me and said she had used my post on Parsi wedding dinners as source for one of her articles. Imagine a Bong blogger teaching Zoroastrians about their practices.
A part of the Sunday School afternoon involved putting chart paper on our backs so that people could write things there. Would the young lady who wrote that I reminded her of her ‘Biology professor’ please clarify whether she meant it in an Amitabh Bachchan in Chupke Chupke sense? And no young lady, I won’t put vegetarian recipes. I speak to vegetarians only thrice a year.
I never did find out the answer to my question. Agent Green Glass, the woman of mystery, swept me off my feet, shoved me into the hotel lift, threw me into her car and dropped me to my car which had a flat
Yes, I was carrying my camera.
Well enough of being the Grumpy Giant, good show folks at Indiblogger and good turnout. I guess the world of Bloggers is too diverse for a one size fits all shindig. But while at it, what’s all this excitement with GulPanag ?
