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Tag: Indiblogger

My first ever blogger meet

When I got a special invite for the ASUS Indiblogger meet in Bangalore, I was psyched. I didn’t participate in the Happy hours contest for ASUS because I was held up tight at work, but then the Indiblogger team cleared all my woes by sending me an invite anyway. This was my first ever blogger meet and it was in Bangalore. Generally I prefer such meets within the city since I have some constraints in travelling often. The timing had me in another dilemma as I had to travel from far to the venue and returning after 10 PM alone was not something I very much looked forward to. But then this was the first blogger meet in town and so I decided that I shouldn’t be missing this one, come what may.

So braving all the odds at work and the Bangalore traffic, I reached ITC Gardenia and was awed at the grandeur of the venue. I was constantly in touch with Soumya on whatsapp and met Shailaja right away at the venue. I was so thrilled to see all the people communicating without any barriers although that was the first time we were meeting. It was indeed a different experience to be a part of it. We all were strangers in a way yet we all had so much in common. We could just connect with anyone there instantly and I sensed the power of writing there. The registrations started in alphabetical order and photo IDs were verified. Once we were inside the Mysore hall where the event was to take place, we saw organized table arrangements (which we never stuck to 😛 ). I was first seated at a table where everyone was new to me and got a lot of fresh acquaintances. Then I couldn’t bear not sitting with the lioness Soumya and switched over to her table. 😀

With the LionessMe with Leo!

The event started off with a Nihal’s concert during which he made us interact and take part. Even the most shy person were tapping their feet and nodding their heads to the beats and it was a very energetic experience. After the concert, the organizer of the evening – Anoop graced us with his darshan and took over brilliantly. The ease with which he kept us hooked on to what he was saying was very admirable and he announced the next activity of the program where we had to meet other bloggers and convince them to give us one of their personal items. Well, I had gone directly from work and regretted that I didn’t have much stuff to part with. Of course, it was more of an exchange deal. I met Sreesha during one such deal 😀 When we were done, I had got a tissue autographed by Soumya, a toothpick (an unused one, of course :P), a fruit sticker, a book (this was given by the generous Vidya Sury), two mentos covers, a happy dent white gum, a hair pin, a decorative piece from Shailaja’s daughter’s shawl 😛 Yes and I parted with a few of my personal items too 🙂 This activity as weird as it may be enabled us to break the ice and mingle freely.

Launch and ConcertThe product manager David Chu launching the products and the Death Metal Concert
ThingsIGotI ate the Happy Dent White gum, others are all here 😛

Next came the ASUS product launch of ASUS EEEBook X205TA and the ASUS All in one PC ET 2040 . I was blown by the EEEbook as soon as I saw it as I am a sucker for all things that are sleek and shiny and this sure was sleeek!!! The all in one PC was also a brilliant idea for saving up space while not compromising on the configuration whether at work or at home. There was a display of both the products and we had a fun time checking them out.

We all are indulgent when it comes to food and the starters that were served continuously by the waiters only made us look forward to dinner. Unfortunately, I had to leave early as my husband had not taken the master key with him and was on his way home cluelessly hoping that I’d be back by then. Pitying him, I had to very reluctantly give up the last activity and the delicious (on hearsay) dinner and head back home. Before I left, I got to hear what the last activity was all about and it made me regret leaving early all the more. The last activity was enacting about blogging in a given style and our team’s style was The Pirates of the Caribbeans. Well, I missed it much.

Overall, I was grinning from ear to ear the entire evening, right from making it to ITC Gardenia, meeting all the bloggers, tweeting about the fantastic experience, seeing our tweets live on the huge screen, making my way back home. My first ever blogger meet, the first blogger meet of 2015 was an awesome one and I have only Indiblogger and ASUS to thank for it.

IndianByBirth&BloggerByChoiceOh Yes! We are!

Until later 🙂

Will you marry me?

 

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Image source: desktopbestwallpaper.com

Proposing to my guy has always been like a dream come true for me. Yes, I belong to one of those rare breeds who don’t think that proposing is a man’s job. Call me names, I wouldn’t care. Proposing to your love to be together for the rest of your life is an expression of love and that can happen irrespective of who does it. 🙂 So here goes how I would do it if I had to propose to my guy on Valentine’s day.

I know that he likes it simple while I am a die-hard romantic. He keeps coming up with simple yet sweeping me off my feet surprises for me while he enjoys my cheesy shows and takes them all in with an amused smile that I love so much. We do it our way every time we do something for the other and end up having the perfect combination of romance and reality. That’s the recipe of our love. So my way would be buttered up with romance with each step, with each action a step closer to a fairy tale.

I would start off the day by dressing up in the first dress and the jewel set he gifted me with and he would surprise me with the shirt I bought him. Then the day would be taken over by a treasure hunt involving the place where we first met, the place where we felt our love for the first time, the place where we confessed our love for each other and a few of our favorite haunts. I would write a poem about each place as the clue. I would accompany him as each clue unravels. Luckily for us, all these places fall close by each other to easily reach yet we take the whole day since we spend a lot of time reminiscing at each of the places. We would sink into nostalgic memories and relive each of those moments together. For lunch, I would open up the picnic basket I had packed with the most favorite of his dishes, each one cooked to perfection with all my love and the place I would plan the lunch would be under the cherry blossom tree where we first felt our love for each other. A crispy crunchy veg salad for starters, a lasagna layered with an extra tinge of his favorite tomato sauce and a bit of white sauce to add a special flavor, golden fried baby potatoes as a side and top it off with his favorite Cassatta ice-cream for dessert.He would be surprised that I cooked all these since I am not a great fan of cooking yet. I would see the appreciation and love for me sparkling in his eyes.

At each stop, he would buy me solitary flowers and would be blissful at the joy I express.As I collect all the flowers he gets close to my heart, he makes a bouquet of them – the single red rose, the bright orange daisy, the sunny daffodil, a couple of tulips and lilies inserted appear as a colorful rainbow that has descended on us. As we draw to the end of the treasure hunt, the last stop would be my place. The place would have a rose petal stepping decor leading from the hallway to the bedroom. Once in the bedroom, I would blindfold him with a red satin ribbon. As he is busy trying to figure out what I am up to, I would put on the mixed tape of the romantic songs we have collected and enjoyed together. I would then quickly slip into the other bedroom with my closet to slip into the powder blue satin gown I have been saving for this day. As I would have all of this planned, this quick slip would take only a couple of minutes which should be enough to lead him on but not let him guess what I am doing.

Then the final moment – I would undo his blindfold and the first thing he sees is me on my knee with the platinum love bands extended and the silent question written all over my face – “Will you marry me?”. He would be stunned for a minute because he had written a poem about me on my previous birthday revolving around the exact image but as in a dream that he had had. This would be literally his dream come true for him. As tears flow freely, we exchange rings and say “Yes!” at the same time. His ‘Yes’ in answer to my unasked obvious question and my ‘Yes’ in the exuberance of having the love of my life with me forever.

This post is an entry for Indi Happy Hours –  Cupid Games 2015 activity in association with Indiblogger and Closeup.

Until later 🙂

A wedding saved!

It was a Saturday 15 days before my wedding and I was planning to fight the crowd on commercial street to pick up some things I still hadn’t. I was set to head home for the marriage ceremonies in the coming week. I woke up grudgingly thinking of all the things that were unchecked on my to-do list. I still had to go to the parlor for the reception trial make-up and I was already worrying too much about what all the make-up would do to my sensitive skin. I brushed my teeth, splashed water over my face and there it was, a sudden sting. Ow! The water was ice cold during winters in Bangalore but it had never stung before. Had my skin become extra sensitive with the trial make-up for wedding that I tried out yesterday? I turned to the mirror and my loud shriek jostled my best friend & roommate to a wake. She had a mouthful to say to me for disturbing her in the “midnight” (Well, 7 AM was midnight to her since her morning starts at 11 AM). I had to shake her awake and show her the pimple on my forehead to shut her up. But that didn’t shut her up, instead she was suddenly wide awake and started yelling at me for a variety of reasons – For gorging on that cutlet and onion pakodi during our friend’s wedding (According to her eating too much oily food brings you pimples, especially when you can’t guarantee the purity of the oil), for not listening to her about washing my face 5 times a day, about not taking her with me for the trial make-up so that she could eat the stylist alive about what brands of make-up she uses and how she does the make-up.

There were all these ceremonies starting days before the wedding and I had exactly 10 days to make this pimple go away without a blemish if I wanted the clicks of my wedding to be as I wanted them to be. I called up the love of my life, who was sleeping joyfully with his comforter pulled over his head and informed him of the tragedy (While my friend was still yelling at me in the background) All I got in response was a grunt and something about how wolverine should not have done something in X-men. Only when I yelled into the mobile that our marriage was in danger, that he yelled back a shocked ‘What?’. I replayed the reason for which I was waking him up at that ungodly hour. Although I knew that he had no idea why this was upsetting me so much (Guys!!!), after years of experience, he knew how to tread such fine lines. “Won’t 10 days be enough for it to go away?” was his first question. I thought about it and replied, “10 days might be enough if I treat it but it has to go without a mark”. He was suddenly as nervous as I was. The last time I faced a pimple problem was before my brother’s wedding and only he knew what a bitch I was when the mark didn’t vanish in time for the photo shoot. This time around it was our marriage and he knew he was doomed to hell if this was not solved. He thought out loud and cut the call with a promise that he would check with his grandmother, sister, mom, friends and any woman alive on the planet who would give him a way to save his wedding and honeymoon plans.

The entire day, my friend was on internet surfing the various home-remedies, face-washes and beauty tips while I nervously paced the room. All the plans were cancelled, I was ordered to stay inside the room, away from all the pollution. When I meekly started about the shopping that I still had to do and the trial make-up,my friend gave me her famous steel glare and asked me “Do you want to get married or not?” After that I did nothing except pester my mom and grandma over the phone, asking for home-remedies. They told me a lot of things and herb names which I could not even dream of getting in Bangalore. When I kept ignoring all of their suggestions, they turned against me for making such a big fuss about a small pimple. I cut the call before my grandma could go on one of those “In my days..” rant. I resorted to the popular ways that the internet suggested – applying lemon juice on it(nothing happened except the pimple burned like it was on fire), washing the face often with a variety of face-washes(My hostel had water shortage and had to order tankers for water, I had washed my face that many times), applying sandalwood powder(this gave a cooling sensation but the pimple was still in all its glory). I was too scared to try anything out of ordinary lest it further worsens. So in a nutshell, the following days were a mayhem, my friend was trying to calm me down and find some remedy at the same time, my soon-to-be husband terrified like a mouse was calling every woman he practically knew.

Then on the evening of the 3rd day since the pimple showed its ugly face, I was woken up by a call from my fiance at 7.30 AM. I had to leave for home the next day and had lost all hope of getting a blemish-free face for my wedding. I had even packed the suitcases without bothering about the pending shopping. “Come out, I am waiting outside your hostel” was all that was said. I woke up with a start and wondered what the idiot was doing up so early in front of my hostel. Either way, I went out pulling a scarf over my head, hiding that horrible pimple as much as I could. There he was standing in the cold, with a small parcel in his hand. Before I could say anything,he thrust it into my hand and said “Try this, this is the last hope I have for your pimple problem.” As soon as I heard the word ‘pimple’ I was wide awake. Inside the parcel was a “Garnier Pure Active Neem” face-wash. I had given up on face washes and hence looked at him as if he was insane. He said, “Just try this one for me. My friend told me this one works. Anyway, there’s no harm in trying na?” I had no reply to that and hence decided to give it a go. I didn’t bother to look if it actually made progress because I had no hope. The next day I left for home on seeing me, my mom said, “Was this the pimple you were making so much fuss for?” I was pissed off that even my mom didn’t take me seriously and went to the mirror to check it. I was in for a surprise. The pimple was still there but it looked smaller. I wondered if I was hallucinating but no, it was definitely smaller than it was the day before.

_uploads_2014_12_Garnier-Pure-Active-Neem-Face-WashImage Source: onedaycart.com

I started religiously washing my face 3 times a day with the face-wash. Each day, I could see it drying up a bit more and on its way out. I called the man who was the reason behind this and chirped away happily. I could tell that he was relieved but later he told me that he didn’t care for the pimple but only for my sanity(Hmph!) My friend saved the day by picking up the things I had to shop and coming a couple of days early to deliver them to me. On the day of my wedding, there was nothing but a tiny spot where the pimple was. I was not bothered by it as it was too light to be visible in the clicks and I was going to marry the love of my life in a few hours. There were only laughter throughout the wedding, no pimples. At the end of the day, I told my newly-wed husband, “I now know that I have made the right choice. No man would brave the Bangalore cold to get me a face-wash and no man would ever take these girl problems so seriously. None other than you!” And his reply was, “Pimple or no pimple, I love you for who you are. But when something bothers you, it bothers me too. And that is the reason why I took it so seriously”. That’s my man!

This post is written as an entry to the Garnier Pure Active Neem Face-Wash contest on Indiblogger in association with Garnier.

Until later 🙂