While I waited for my passport (which was recently dispatched via speed post) I made myself useful at home and also caught up with a couple of friends.
Just recently, I took part in my third Mizo Bloggers Meet in Aizawl and I really had a great time.
Like any other Bloggers Meet, even though you’re meeting people for the first time, if you had known each other for a long time online and gone through their blog posts regularly, when you finally do meet, there is nothing awkward at all – it’s as if you all knew each other personally for a very long time.
And so I met bloggers Njldst, Puipuii, Vered, Gisele, Andy and Tluanga for the first time. Father Sphinx was the only person I knew personally from before (he and I go way back, and by that I mean aizawl.com and zoram.com days, when mIRC was popular).
I turned up five minutes late. The meeting was supposed to start at 7pm. I reached the venue at 7:05. I took this photo at 7:45. Yup. I guess punctuality is lost in most people :)
So anyway, here are the peeps who made it that day –
Michael was as interesting in person as his blog. We tried to pronounce his blog name “Njldst”. Not surprisingly, only those of us who were a bit tipsy managed to enunciate it perfectly. Like me, he was also brought up in Tamil Nadu (maybe the only difference was that his family settled there, whereas I was brought up in a boarding school). And of course it felt great to finally meet another Mizo who had an English Tamil accent :)
Vered was just as I expected – mischievous, playful, witty and full of life. Since she lives in an isolated place outside Delhi, she wasn’t exactly used to all the fancy lights and glitter of an urban lifestyle. In fact, when we went for a ride after our dinner, she thought the parking lights of our cars were disco lights, so she started dancing right in the middle of the road. The video is at the end of this post :)
Puipuii – She apparently lives somewhere in Durtlang tunnel. When you pass through the tunnel, if you see some strange kid climbing the walls of the tunnel, just wave and smile at her. That’s Puipuii. Don’t mind her. But if she starts growling at you from the wall, throw stones at her, she’ll scoot. She was the reason why we drove to Durtlang after our dinner to feast our eyes on the “best” view in Aizawl, according to her. Ah, more on that further below.
Father Sphinx needs no introduction. He had been mentioned more than enough on my blog so I’ll leave it at that. He’s the mawng.com guy. In Mizo, Mawng means ass, and com (kawm) means dig. So you figure it out why he’s a mawng.com. Don’t believe me? Type mawng.com on your browser and see where that leads to.
Father Sphinx brought his friend Tluanga along. He’s also a regular blogger, blogging about different topics. Nice guy, he was also another person who had never met any of us before and yet decided to turn up. That’s the kind of person I admire, because we Mizos (including moi) are known to be quite introvert’ish when it comes to socializing with somebody new.
Andy showed up really late because he had a jam session. He’s the vocalist of Scavenger Project, one of Mizoram’s leading rock bands. He’s the rhymester among us, updating his blog with soft penetrating poems (that rhyme). In other words, he was the emo of our group that night :)
Since he loves to rhyme so much, here’s a limerick (a-a-b-b-a):
I met a dude called Andy,
And boy was he all dandy.
He mimes and croons like Mick Jagger on dope
And when he does those, all we can do is hope
he doesn’t flash us his pink panty.
And finally there’s Lal Khiangte. Formerly known as Gisele in the blogosphere, but now known as “Miss Remruati”, she’s a lecturer at Mizoram University. She came to the meeting with an agenda – to get to know more about Mizo bloggers, interview us and do some research and shit. I made sure that didn’t happen and sabotaged her every move :D Yeah, comon, it was a night to enjoy, socialize and let our hair down, not a night of academics and surveys. She’s much sweeter in real life than her blog, and small world, she’s the younger sister of a very dear junior of mine from college! I really do owe her my time to discuss about her research and paper, which I will definitely do so in the coming days.
And so there we were, the seven of us, at one of my favorite restaurants in Aizawl – Octangle, sharing and laughing our way through the night amidst the beef steak, sliced pork and Nasi goreng. It was a night to remember. Kudos to Mahmingi, the owner of Octangle for serving us the usual extremely scrumptious appetizers and main course dishes.
Here are some of the pics that night:
L-R: Me, Michael, Puipuii, Lal Khiangte, Vered, Father_Sphinx, Andy and Tluanga. The bill came to around 2k, which was not bad at all, considering the amount of fun we had.
We talked about ourselves and what we do, about the things we love and hate. We discussed about blogging and Mizoram, and how it is a very powerful and much underrated tool. We shared our opinion on various matters and argued too on a few.
Vlog – we discussed about vlogging, and even though the trend had died down, we wondered why there had been no Mizo vloggers till now. And then Michael brought up a very valid point – why is it called vlogging? By his justification, since “blog” is derived from “web log” and they took the last letter to construct the word “blog”, shouldn’t “video blog” be called “olog” instead of “vlog”? Good point Mikey boy, here’s a cookie.
And then, true to the tradition of socializing in Mizoram, we went for a ride after dinner. Yes, the famous ride culture. Puipuii suggested we drive to Durtlang to enjoy the breathtakingly beautiful Aizawl scenery.
And so we did. This is what we saw from the best Aizawl view point in Durtlang –
Lolz, yes, it was that misty. Visibility was less than 5 meters. Here are some screen grabs of a video I recorded from my phone.
And of course, as promised earlier, here is Vered doing her moves on a heavily mist covered Durtlang road, lolz.
Great people, great time, great night, looking forward to such get-togethers again.
Cheers.
