Apr 23, 2007 05:39 PM
2963 Views
(Updated Apr 27, 2007 04:18 PM)
How the plan originated!
One day, when I signed into my account in MS, I saw a small envelop symbol near to my account id…Oh! I had got a M2M. I checked it out…It was from “the elephant who thinks he can fly”…he had replied to my congratulatory M2M for being a star writer…
He had written that he would land at Kolkata on 21st of April and would be here for some days. And he was interested to have a MS meet in Kolkata. I almost jumped with happiness, because it would be my first ever organized MS meet, otherwise I had met few MS members, but never in a group. I had read so many reviews about all those MS meets in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore that I was desperate to go to such meets where I can actually talk to all those wonderful MSians out there, can listen to them sitting right in front of them…
How the plan developed!
So instantly I was on work…I contacted Ambuj(nitesh1104) and he contacted Mimi(mimi_mou) and so the series of mails started from then only. At first I was like in a big black h*le of confusions… as Mimi contacted me saying that the meet will be on 27th of April and Ambuj would not come as he would be out of Kolkata. By that time Ambuj had told me the meet was going to happen on 22nd of April. I banged my head on my office desktop(hey…I did not bang that hard that you will find the bump on my forehead…so stop looking for it in the pics uploaded by Ambuj…;-). Then Ambuj, being a very systematic person, did a wonderful job…collected everybody’s email ids and started communicating with everybody by a group mail, which started popping in and out every now and then at everybody’s mailbox(at-least thrice a day!) with initial topics like date, time, place and exact venue for the meet. Everybody tried their best to suggest some good places around Kolkata which will be convenient for everybody to reach. So finally, by 20th April evening all of us had gathered these data for the forthcoming meet…
Date: 22nd April, 2007
Time: 2 PM
Place: Flurys restaurant, Park street, Kolkata
And by that time our mailboxes had around 40/50 mails regarding this first ever MS meet in the city of(San) joy….:-)
How the plan came out to be a rocking success!
Finally the day arrived…in the morning we contacted each other to make sure that everybody is coming. I took a taxi from my place and headed towards Park Street at about 1.40 PM…I had never been to that place before so I told the driver to drop me in front of the restaurant. When I reached there it was already 2.10 PM. I made a call to Ambuj only to find out that pre-recorded monotonous female voice saying that “The number you are trying to call is either switched off or out of reach…”. Then I tried Mimi’s number and got another female voice…hey not pre-recorded…it was live from Mimi…;-). She said that FE, Jr. FE and she were waiting inside the restaurant. So I entered into the restaurant quickly. I could instantly recognize Mimi as she was having the exact sweet look and smile as her photograph in MS. Then, there was Sanjoy…I recognized him because of his specs which was the only similarity I could make out with the pic in MS(:-P) and I was confirmed that he was Sanjoy as Mimi was also with him…and there were another pair of curious eyes of a very active(future) member of MS…;-)…It was Srijit, Sanjoy’s son… Soon I joined them and there was a quick introduction and all with the big, loud and smart Hiiiiiiiiiiiiii from Jr. Sanjoy…Then we waited for the systematic guy, yet to arrive! I made a call to him again and this time I could hear the ring and Ambuj attended the call and told that he was not getting the restaurant…
So we had to wait for some more time and Jr. Sanjoy was so exited to meet Ambuj that he kept on looking at anybody entering through the restaurant door and enquiring whether he was Ambuj or not and once he asked whether the person in a uniform was Ambuj or not only to get an answer that “No! He is a watchman!”…:-P
So finally Ambuj came; again some casual introductions and another big Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii….from Jr. Sanjoy. All of us started talking starting from the hotel ambience to MouthShut, from Delhi meets to Bangalore meets, from Lyla(cousin2) to Shanti(The_Reviewer)…but all the Mimi had maintained her silence…she was only smiling and replying back to questions asked to her as if she was in some kind of viva and she was giving only the to-the-point answers! But Sr. Sanjoy was the most talkative among us and that too his talks make sense also. And Jr. Sanjoy was the most active among us…he kept jumping all around the place; a happy go lucky kind of fellow; you will start loving the kid from the beginning only…
Then by Sr. Sanjoy’s advice we placed our order for the lunch. While our order was being processed, Sr. Sanjoy took out a MouthShut T-shirt from his bag and told us to write something on it and Mimi being the youngest of all was given the privilege. The Front of the T-shirt was already filled up by some other MS members so we started filling up its back. It was really nice to read those handwritten messages from those people for whose reviews we wait so eagerly.
Then a photo session followed and Jr. Sanjoy turned out to be a good photographer and he did us favor by giving his priceless time for clicking snaps of all the MS members present there.
In the mean time our lunch arrived and we had our lunch… had ordered some very good dishes. After the lunch, we had some desserts also.
Finally the bill and Sr. Sanjoy was very kind to pay the bill all by him. It was the time for departure from that lovely place. We started towards home with promises of meeting again.
Now how I felt all about it!
We had a great time there…and I am really looking forward for some more of these kind of meets. Doesn’t it feel great to meet some old friends? Yes, here also you will feel the same; you will never feel as if you are meeting some new people…because you have already met them, their thoughts through their reviews…at that time they will be just sitting in front of you sharing their views with you verbally. I never imagined that I could be that free to talk to all of them apart from being wrongly accused by Mimi that I was as shy as her! But I know, I was not shy…because I was among my friends and I loved to be there.:-)
