Code Project GIT Meet 2010

Introduction

This article is all about the exciting and adventurous meet that happened between some Indian CPians about a month ago. The meet was so wonderful that it deserves an article and I am sure you will feel the same once you read it. So enjoy reading.

History

Let me first tell you how it all started. 22^nd July 2010 – CodeProject adds two more forums to its website - Indian and Chinese forums meant to help Indians and Chinese who are not comfortable in English can post the questions here. But gradually the forums especially Indian forum became more popular among Indians as a general Indian topics discussion forum. So the forum was re-named as General Indian Topics (GIT) and the purpose was redefined to this: This forum is for those of our Indian audience who are not yet comfortable with the main forums. The purpose of the forum is to allow new Indian members to get a feel for how the site works, be guided by others, and eventually graduate to the main programming and discussion forums.

I, SChristmas, was introduced into this forum by Nishant Sivakumar and I was one of the first very few members of this forum. Gradually GIT became very popular among Indian CPians. In fact CPians from other parts of the world started liking it as well. We usually discuss general Indian topics (as the name suggests) with the main motive to make everyone comfortable, get a feel for how the site works, guide new visitors and eventually help them to participate in other technical forums of the site.

Well, I guess that’s enough about the forum. Let me now tell 5 W’s and an H of the meet.

One of our member, current CodeProject MVP and former Microsoft MVP, Abhijit Jana (we call him AJ), one day came up with an idea about how good it would be if we could meet each other. All Indian CPians at one place! We discussed about it and it was finalised that AJ will put up a post asking for details of the people who want to meet. People were asked to post their name, current location, preferred location, preferred date/time and suggestions about the meet if any. Pune was selected as the most preferable location. Then it was time for finalising the dates and the events. New posts were created by AJ for these things. Unfortunately there were only couple of replies to them. New posts were created but the result was the same. I felt like something suddenly happened and people were no more interested in the meet.

After some days, Ankur Mundhra re-initiated the discussions about the meet. He talked to people who were in Pune and nearby places and to the people who could come down to Pune for the meet. And finally five people decided that they will meet each other for the first time. They are:

Let me share a snap of all 5 of us together.

You must be thinking that all Pune/nearby guys showed up for the meet, right? Well...NO. All of them came from different parts of the country and that was the most surprising part.

• Me – from Mumbai (western India)
• Kunal – from Pune (western India)
• Abhijit – from Hyderabad (southern India)
• Ankur – from Jharkhand (north eastern India)
• And, Abhishek – from Kolkata (north eastern India)

Venue – Lonavla, a place between Pune and Mumbai was chosen as the venue for our meet. We thought we will spend a day in Lonavala and will leave for Pune in the evening. Lonavala is a lovely place with wonderful scenery and a must go in the rainy season.

What We Planned for the Meet?

Well... nothing! We just knew that we will have fun.

How it Happened?

First Ankur came to Mumbai and it was planned that we would leave together to Lonavala. We met at Dadar station and took a Volvo bus to Lonavala from there.

AJ came to Pune from Hyderabad. He chose to come by a Volvo bus too. Abhishek Sur flew from Kolkata to Pune. They all met Kunal Chowdhury(KC), who was already in Pune. To make the journey more interesting, these three guys hired an auto rickshaw to travel to Lonavala which is about 65 kilometers (~40 miles) from Pune.

We meet in Lonavala near a dam named Bushi dam. I must tell you that I (SChristmas) was shocked to meet AJ for the first time. He looked like a very serious guy from his photos. But he is so jovial and friendly. I was little nervous during the whole meet. I think that was because I was seeing all these guys for the first time and they are like gurus to me.

Here is one of the snap in front of the Bushi dam:

We then had tea and some bhajjis in a local restaurant near Bhusi dam. We then left the place and chose to trek to a mountain. The place we arrived at after some trekking was beautiful. We were on top of a mountain and we could see valleys and mountains. We had some beer there. We then discussed about GIT, its members, CodeProject. After that we left that place. We asked the locals there for a good restaurant and went for lunch. We then roamed around to see the beauty of the place. We took snaps everywhere possible. And you know what, we were posting live updates of our meet in GIT with the photos. Crazy, isn’t it?!

We had some technical discussions too (but for a very short while):

After a fun filled day, we left for Pune in the evening. We took an express train to Pune. After reaching Pune, we had dinner together in a restaurant in Koregaon Park. It’s the same street where there was a blast some time back (near German bakery). This place is also well known for Osho Ashram.

Finally, I went to my friend’s flat. AJ and AS went to KC’s flat. Ankur went to meet his other friends in Pune.

I may not have been able to cover this in detail, but I assure you that it was a great get together and I wish it to happen again and again. Guys decide soon when we are meeting again. I am just so excited and I am sure it will be more people, more time and more fun this time.

Special Thanks To:

• Abhijit Jana for the idea and taking a step towards the GIT meet
• Ankur for re-initiating and finalising this meet
• Abhishek Sur who flew from another corner of the country
• Kunal Chowdhury for managing things in Pune
• Nishant Sivakumar for supporting and guiding the GIT meet

Thanks to all GIT members for supporting us and hope to meet you all soon.