Indiblogger : When Zombies attended a meet..

“I am very nervous, क्या पहन के आऊं ?" ...

Me : ???

सिमर भाई , यह कमेंट्स पढ़ कर तो ऐसा लगता है जैसे या तो यह लोग 10 -12 के बोर्ड्स देने आये हैं या फिर शादी के लिए लड़की देखने जा रहे हैं .

Simardeep: Ha ha ha

Me: अरे सीरियस हूँ यार.. तुझे हँसी आ रही है ... Ha ha ha

Simardeep: चल कल मिलते हैं

With my 2 buddies – Dhirendra and Talreja not coming this time, Simardeep and me decided to meet at one place for the Indi meet. Dhirendra was busy in his own wedding and Talreja on a bride hunt...गये काम से दोनों . This was the night before the meet and I was silently watching all these`nervous wrecks` from the past week. Mostly were first timers, but way too nervous. On the D Day the location was – Hyatt. One advantage of indiblogger is that everytime I get to experience the new places and Hyatt this time was the icing on the cake. In the Metro I called up Simar but his cell was consistently on waiting. Glancing on the watch and deciding to move, I “tried” to hail an auto but they rejected me more number of times then even a Delhi girl...Na..na.na.. Finally one agreed to go.`Finally, alas`. On reaching the place and seeing no known face nearby, I was confused “ कहीं गलत जगह तो नहीं आ गये ?”. Decided to ask the parking manager, “ Entry यहीं से है ?” Ambipur meet sir.. A nod. Just go straight. So from the bright sunlight I enter into the dim corridor. I’ll go on adjust mode, scanning the area. On the right I see Mr. Khanduja and family.. My team from the previous meet. Seeing me a smile flashes on his face and a recognition..Shwetabh. Nice start. Then we started where we had first seen each other remembering the Connected music meet. I move forward and see Murtaza, joking around with tea and coffee cups we are joined by Aashish, Aditya Jha and others.  After 2 – 3 minutes, Simar too shows up.

By the time we finished up that little refreshment  its time for registration. The crowd is too much this time and the 3 laptops seem insufficient. Me and Simar head to the table in the front.. We both are used to the limelight now. Before Anoop can begin, I cast a glance around and see new faces.. Very few familiar ones. My excitement dampens a bit. The proceedings begin with a round of applause for the biggest gathering Indi has seen. Anoop starts with a Jig- an old way of shaking the body. He then asks who all bunked work to be here?? Without blinking an eyelid my hand goes up and he says,  “You always bunk”. Yeah I do. I get one day to be myself here. Handing over the reins to Nihaal – he wants us to do the head banging – the same old trick i did with “Prateeksha” to get my 30 seconds of fame and recognition. I was tempted for a few seconds and then decided against it. Maybe today was not my day – so wrong the 2^nd time.

HEAD BANGING IN PROGRESS

We get a crash course in headbanging –  Stand up, left forward, right back, weight transfer on the back leg, shoulders straight, head down then up,  going on from levels novice to experts  in head banging with each step. The addition- turn head round like a cycle. Then left on our own  it was a pure 1 min madness, heads going round, hairs going haywire. When it all stopped, 2 prizes went out. A girl at the back and one guy at our table getting  Sony headset. I did tweeting in a way which I had not done ever. Going on and on. 30 secs of fame came with a change. 5 meets and no intro ever..people started. The 1^st lady spoke on liver transplant and Aditya murmured behind me “Liar, everytime she speaks”. 1-2 more intros and it went to the social cause category. Quite impressive ones. I personally liked a few.. people teaching underprivileged children, spending time with them. Although we clapped a few times to stop the intro but some causes were so good that the applause came from the bottom of the heart. Hats off to  you guys and ladies. 

Just when I thought I could sleep, one girl gave her intro that she wrote about love and relationships. My eyes opened up just like Aamir khan in the opera sequence in Dil Chahta Hai. I saw Arvind Passey sir staring at me with a smile and a gesture with meant  “ देख तेरे जैसी ही लिखती है ”. I smiled. Still not out of my shock I heard a sweet voice giving her intro in Hindi. I think she was a doctor. Awesome poetry she recited. हम तो फैन ही हो गये रे ..लाइन्स के, लेडी के नहीं।. पता नहीं क्या क्या सोचना शुरू कर दिया पढ़ते ही , सेंडल पड़वानी हैं क्या ? ( On the serious count, want to really read that poetry and see how girls take up the matters of the heart )

First timers too got a chance. Then came the chance to pick up the number and win. Out went the nos. 7,9,2,6,5,4.. And the prizes- cookie, headset, powerbank, 500 bucks,ketchup,an old checkin badge, a cocktail on the house. With 9 nos. gone and the final one to come Anoop asked us  to shout - as loud as you can. The loudest table gets to pick the last number 10. We all screamed. Yep, the whole 200+ people on top of our voices – for full 42 seconds. The winners – no one. There were only nine numbers and this one was just for fun. A girl with a polka dot dress  and a funky bag too won a headset. That was the interval and we were told to head to lunch.

THE LINES WERE ABOUT THIS

Coming out a conference room and saw lines which i see normally on only 2 occasions –

    1.  On Tuesdays outside Hanuman Mandir

    2.  Checking at NDLS metro station.

  

Today was neither Tuesday nor was I at the metro station . It was a line for food – or should i say 3. A few of us got talking with Arvind Sir in the hope that the line would clear away. Even after 10 minutes there was no hope. So without wasting any time we got in the line. Done and dusted in 20 minutes I returned to the hall to see it resemble a marriage hall. (Wont disclose why..he he he :) ). After 10 minutes normality was restored. In the first half we were told to tweet about the thing when a particular smell comes to our mind. In between the tweets, I got a notification that I or rather my tweets were being watched by someone (No US spy, it was Priyanka keeping a close watch on my tweets). It was time for the sponsors Ambipur.  

THE 4 SCENTS WHICH DISTRIBUTED THE TEAMS

Shraddha came forward to take charge. She started on all things about the product..the scents, the varieties and all technical gyan. Simply bored us. She started asking on the various types of odours ladies have problems with and it all started – cloths, pets, etc . etc.  I took a dig by  tweeting “ Kitty party lagti hai, all woman issues” . Shraddha came with a new innovation and I tweeted.. Give us a sample and we shall try the innovation. Just then Simar spoke “ बड़ी जल्दी सुन ली तेरी ब़ात , देख samples बँट रहे हैं .” I looked around and here they were. On our table there were a few scents -  New Zealand spring, lavender and vanilla. People asking for other scents just like double scoops in an ice cream parlour. 

THATS TOTAL CRAZY

Now it was time for fun. On the basis of our bottles we were divided into four groups. Approximate group of 50 each were made and then we were equally divided into two groups (27 each ) and asked to present a skit of 3 minutes. People asked me to be the project manager but I refused. The idea was to present a zombie movie. We had no clue how we would do it because we had no dialogues to speak. The idea came up that we all could become zombies and the spray would turn them back into normal people. I knew all this would take only 30 seconds to do it and we needed to go to 3 minutes. We assembled backstage and opened our minds to some ideas. Murtaza and me decided to take charge. We both felt like Ganguly , Dravid, Tendulkar deciding what to do in the death overs. It was chaos. Slowly slowly a general idea came up that the 3 of us would pretend to take a drug and slowly due to the excess of it we would transform into zombies and infect the other normal people.  Then other  people would turn into zombies and a saviour “ Ambi Man” would come with the bottles and turn us into normal people and then a song would mean that the act is finished. 

THATS WHAT WE WERE "ZOMBIES"..CREDIT - DOOM 3

We even did a dry run of the same and I knew that I had to use the the full knowledge of Doom 3 , Half life  and a zombie  novel which I had read to being just like a zombie. Years of gaming practice would now be put on a test. I added things and notified others that the act was all about being totally crazy and being as slow as you can to prolong to those 3 mins. Do not think about Winning ,think about entertaining  people.

DRUGGING 

Our time came and I was ready and along with the other two people started acting like taking a drug and slowly slowly I lost unconsciousness. As I sat still, shivered like i was really cold. Took off my sunglasses just like a robot, stood still, eyes darting around for victims making the body stiff and gave a loud grunt towards the audience with bulging eyes and a scream i had seen in survival horror games. 

THE "ZOMBIE " MOMENT

Pouncing on the victim (Jatin), i clambered onto him to make him a zombie too.  Getting up slowly and venturing to the next lot I tried to do the realistic account. Getting on our last lot, we all fell down as our Ambi Man had come to save others. A bit of spray hit my eyes, Murtaza fell on top of me and i shouted from underneath, “अबे , उठ  वरना मैं सच का zombie बन जाउँगा ”.. ha ha. As the narration was going on, we knew when to act normal. We all returned back to the normal world and danced to the song All is well .

ZOMBIE ATTACK AND OUR AMBI MAN "RAJNIKANT ISHTYLE"

Literally letting our hair down on this song. We had done our job. Mission over. For those 3 mins, i had totally turn myself into a zombie. I lost count of what the other teams did after us.

ALL IS WELL

No clue. On the way i surely had a chat with Priyanka and Prateek to get into normal mode. We did not win prizes, but we won hearts. It was a total dumb charades where only actions spoke. Although it was a team effort in execution , i would like to thank the following people specially-

•  Murtaza, Jatin, others for listening to my ideas, contributing their own and going together as a team.

• Id Software and activison – the creators of Doom 3

• Valve- the creators of Half life series

• Mainak dhar – My friend and author of `Zombiestan` who gave me the inspiration to become the lead zombie and try innovation.

We posed for our blog. The winner getting a Lumia and the different concept bloggers getting Tabs, PS3, Sony Smartwatches, Powerbanks. When we broke up after the group pics, I saw many people coming up to me and congratulating me- some known (Murtaza, Jatin, Priti, Prateek), some unknown. Heading out towards the exit, Arvind Sir and his wife  came up from behind and he spoke, “तू तो कमाल का zombie था , बॉलीवुड के डायरेक्टर को तुझे देखना चाहिए था ”. I only smiled.

For my friends- I May be a zombie, a humourous guy, a crazy crack, Galib (Murtaza still thinks so), Loveguru but deep down inside i know that i would always be a simple guy who would keep writing on LOVE.

Waiting for the next meet and seeing what more can i become now. :)