Note: This post uses the most frequently used letter of the English alphabet quite liberally.

When I reached the Cafe Coffee Day outlet at Dadar TT, it was already 10 minutes past 3 PM. Seeing no one standing outside, I waited for bloggers to arrive. A guy arrived, looking at his watch, casting a glance or two in my direction with a smile on his face. I thought, oooh great, he’s recognized me! There’s a rush, even in the most modest of human beings, when they are thus recognized!! I took a step towards him. But the guy walked past me and gave his girlfriend (standing behind me) a hug.

There are times when the bottom of a rock looks very inviting!

Anyways, in a few minutes S. Anand walked past. I recognized him from a bloggers’ meet couple of years back. After chatting with him for a couple of minutes, I called up Yazad to check if he was on his way. He told me to enter the café and locate guy with long hair and a big smile. That would be Amit Varma, he told me.

Inside the café, it wasn’t hard to locate Amit after Yazad’s precise instructions. He was accompanied by Ravikiran, Aadisht, Nandan, Saket and Anand, who were sitting around a table that had a small placard saying “Blog Meet”. Later, Zainaab joined us armed with a guitar. In a few minutes, the tally had increased to 12 with the addition of Yazad, Altaf and Arnab.

Amidst some mandatory PJ’s by Cartelians, we shifted from the air-conditioned interiors of the café to the oppressingly sunny outdoors and from there, back to the comfortable indoors. The conversation ranged from making predictions about the India-Pakistan ODI series to locating Kenya on the African continent. But it was too noisy in the café and we had to shout to make ourselves heard over the din. In the meanwhile, Chandrahas joined us.

The presence of so many Cartel members would’ve normally meant a discussion dominated by Libertarianism. But surprisingly it wasn’t so. And it was only when Saket said that he was half Libertarian that the discussion moved towards the pet topics of the Cartel. Anarchy was defined, the necessity of government was questioned and demanding taxes was likened to mugging. It made for a fascinating discussion.

Pretty soon though, I left the Meet and made my way to the MMRDA grounds at BKC to watch the finals of the Brand Equity Quiz ‘05.