I was almost not about to make it. It was one of those Saturdays, where all the activities seemed to be lined up and got cluttered one after another. The Indiblogger meet invitation happened almost a month back, so this had the maximum priority. However, we also had a Food festival invitation and a cook book launch, almost coinciding at the same time.

If this was not enough, the entire family including myself was down with a bad viral bout from Thursday. To top it, on Friday late evening, a very close friend lost his father, where I came back home in the early morning hours of Saturday. A quick nap and then an early morning PTM at my son’s school, left me so exhausted that when I started for the venue, I was literally dragging myself.

A day before, we were supposed to start sharing pictures about rich and colourful culture of Kolkata, using the hashtag #BergerXP. I pulled out almost all of my old and new pics and guess what – I was in for a pleasant surprise when I entered the venue after registration. They were discussing the pics which were tweeted and two of my pics were discussed in details for completely different reasons. Then it was time for the winners. Almost out of a Ripley’s believe it or not, I won the first runner up prize. The first ever prize for my photography and a Microsoft power bank. Yayyyyy.

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The pic of mine which won the first runner up

 

 

 

 

 

It was a pleasant feeling to see so many inspired passionate bloggers from Kolkata, all under one roof and I was sitting along with some known faces like – Sammy, Preeti  and Upamanyu, a good friend and someone who inspires me always – Ranganda (Dutta) and the youngsters Anamitra and Sukanta. We had a small round of introduction across all the tables and it was so inspiring to see the mother son blogger duo speaking about each other.

The BergerXp presentation gave us a perspective of new innovative techniques of painting, which will take care of all the dust and pollution at the home while the painting is going on.

The tea break gave an opportunity to catch up with Anoop and Renie and requesting them to organize more events like this in Kolkata and not in an interval of 4 years.

Certain close blogger friends, who can on any day give the paparazzi a run for their money, were successful once again in taking numerous awkward shots of mine. Definitely made me feel important and like a celeb.

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Paparazzi attack

 

Post the break, there were team activities lined up and I felt like being back to management school where they wanted all the groups to break up and form different teams than how we were initially seated. However with little alterations, we managed to keep the same team. Two rounds of activities including sanding of a board and painting of a social cause with Berger paints on a white canvas. We chose Female foeticide.

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The sanding . Rangan da and me look like surgeons rather than bloggers

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Sanding activity continues

 

 

 

 

 

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The winning team -Kolkata Palletes

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The second team activity

 

With baited breath we waited for the results and indeed it was one of those saturdays where I was winner for second time. It could not have been better. The prizes were very cool however insignificant compared to the two persons I met in this meet. One is ace food blogger Rajdeep and another one is Maniparna Sengupta Mazumdar. Have heard a lot about Rajdeep and have been a fan of Maniparna’s writing .

I came back with some renewed friendships and new friends and truck load of inspiration to Blog now and live forever …Thank you Indibloggers. Thank you BergerXP

Pic courtesy – Poorna paparazzi and Indiblogger team 

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All the bloggers under one roof – Hurr Hurr

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A few good women

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Why blogging ?

 

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Explaining own pic

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The poster of mine which invited many reactions

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Paparazzi attack starts