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Delhi Book Club Meet - Sunday, May4th, 2008.

 ”Am late. Am late. Am late.” murmuring to myself, I was almost running on the white slippery marble. The meet was supposed to be held at Crossword, Citywalk, Saket. Soon as I reached there, near the entrance, I found very beautiful, lovely, pretty lady smiling and looking at me and I was like “Do I know her? Is she one of the participants?” In all this confusion, talking to myself, I went straight to her. I was right. She was Vaani, an architect by profession and a book lover by taste. A quite gurl actually, but i guess will open up soon as we have something interesting to talk. And hello, she is a Richard Bach Fan. Gosh !! I have been looking for one for so long now, my cuz would be so happy with me. I finally found her one… :P Along with her, there was this handsome young chap called Diwakar. Diwakar is a software engineer, but I didnt know that he has engineered on a lot other things as well. I did come to know later on when he started talking and after I visited his blog. Interesting character I must say.

I asked them if they found anyone, who happens to be there, for the meet. And the answer was “Kisi ko jaante kahan hai.” Yea, right we were all strangers to each other. Despite requesting all to drop in their details on the wiki again and again, i only found email adresses. Sad. India is not so forward yet. Not all check emails on the move. So we had no other option left but stare at strangers or wait. So I thought I ll go check if I could find someone whom I know or can recognise.

I think I knew where I could find Arpita, with what I knew of her and her Dickens’ story. Ofcourse, in the classics section. So I took one full round and went to the classics section and there I found this cute lil gurl, who was cribbing with books. Ayyoooda dangerous ones. Cant think of em even touching them, after i left school. Now I havent met Arpita before but have seen her pic in her profile, which is almost a thumbnail. So I went close and said to her “Arpita”. Bang on !! I was right. She was Arpita. She responded “Navin”. So we shook hands and she introduced me to her mate, Raashi. Raashi and Arpita are doing MPHIL in sociology from JNU. Both learned research scholars. My god, I am getting jealous and filled with inferiority complex … What have I been doing all my life? Nothing.

Anyway, so we were five of us now. Sounds fair for the second meet which was not much advertised and was up at the wiki only a couple of days ago. There were in total nine participants who registered. Usually my formula says only 45 % of the total on the list attend such non commercial social meets. Anyway, we decided we will wait for others till 5:00 pm if anyone turns up and then start off with the meet. In this whole ten or fifteen minutes, we stared at almost every visitor, as if he came in for the meet. Alas, noone else made it I guess. Since we were fantastic five I decided I ll do away with the deadly plan, that Arpita and me had in brewing, to rope in readers from the bookstore if noone turns up. Not needed now I guess. Five is a good number and I like it.

The weather outside was getting better. It drizzled a little while i was coming so it was much much cooler than it usually is, these days. And it was windy as well. So we decided we ll sit out. We found us a Round Table for the conference. Tch Tch.. I should have clicked that round table, was apt for the scene. Nevermind. So, the meet started with a very informal round of intro from eveyone and then we just let it flow. From books to movies, from movies to music, science to fiction, mysteries to poetries, biographies to sociology, bla bla bla. Talks and interesting reviews from DK on movies, seemed to pep up, us all. Prolly, Vaani pointed out that he was a bit tired and she thought would be reluctant to participate in the discussion but I guess he was the tiger there. It was absolute fun !!

Infact we blabbered so much that Arpita started feeling hungry. Sorry Arpita. Bad joke. :P So her quest for a cuisine started, she was actually confused by the variety of offerings over there but finally settled for Crispy Chicken Noodles. LOL.. And others too reluctant to go for anything, So I thought we ll do away with a cold coffee for everyone. It was Sunday so it was thoda rush over there. We had to wait in the queue. Somehow these guys managed to catch hold of a place where we could sit, while I was getting the coffee. Vaani helped me with it. So nice of her. So… By now we were comfortable with each other, so I guess the next time we can have an agenda to follow and perhaps more participants as well. At around seven or so, two of us decided to call it off, Vaani and D-Walker (I hope tou dont mind me calling you that Diwaker), since they were from almost the other end of the capital. Infact one from the outskirts. So we took us a group snap and called it off for the day. Visit my Flickr album for the snaps of the DBC Meet.

“Where does it go from here?” I asked. Should we continue with this. I never did knew that its going to be catapulted back to me. Well, for the moment I guess I had nothing to say but later on I came up with craziest ideas which you can find on the DBC wiki.

Was the meet over? No. Two participants did leave but it was not over. We decided we ll stay for some more time and enjoy the talks and ofcourse the lovely romantic weather. What Vaani and Diwakar had missed on the day, was the cute, lovely, funny poem by our very talented poet, Arpita. A poem she wrote on somebody’s nose. Interesting observations there Arpita. LOL .. Did I tell you, I was scared of what this cheeky talented gurl might come up with on us after the meet. .. I hope she doesn’t do us that honour. But she z got a gift for sure. Not many out there can imagine as well as execute and express what they imagine. Very Impressive !!!

Raashi on the other hand was no match either. She is a research scholar and recently did some research work on Mirza Ghalib. She had loads to say and all of it was very very interesting. Something which I could have never thought of, or bothered to get into. I now realise I have missed so much and there is so much to learn, so much to know, so much to discover. Am learning so much. Every participant had something or the other to give. Each one of them, very unique, special and gifted. Dunno about others, but it was a great experience for me. It was a lovely, entertaining yet educating evening and I enjoyed every moment, every bit of it.

This was the second meet of DBC and was completely different from the first one. Two meets in consecutive months. Each of em being special and entertaining its own sweet way. I never did knew that my returning to books will be so grand. So entertaining and social. I guess am getting strung to this now. Reading books and writing poetries. Two new hobbies in a months time. Not bad. Not bad at all. Infact.. tis a very good stress burster. So if you have a very stressed life with work, do try this out. Am sure you gonna enjoy this. Possibly you can join us at the next meet which I guess should happen by the end of this month. Considering the fact, the mails I have been getting, and the people who are keen to join in, am sure the next meet is gonna be even more exciting. Do consider it and be there. You can find the details at http://delhibookclubmeet.pbwiki.com

The meet was worth the two IPL matches I missed. Infact lot lot more than that !!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 at 8:28 am and is filed under Cherishing Life, My Frankenstein Lab, Personal Thoughts, PunchBag, Social Networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.