Selective Amnesia

Of Blog Meets and New Old friends

A post by Amit Varma that I wish I had written.
Over the last two years, I’ve met so many new “old friends” and cherish the time I spend with them. I would like to take a bit of your time in talking about some people I’ve met and admired, on the blog and off.

• Kingsley – the first person who ever blogrolled me, the only person who still listens to my wildly crackpot theories on the origin and history of Tamil.


• LazyGeek – Who still thinks I would never go wrong. One of the first good friends I made since the invention of Selective Amensia


• Kiruba – The first blogger I ever met, in a place I didn’t expect to meet – a Ryze mixer. The guy inspires confidence, jealousy and loads of fun


• Chenthil – The Blogger I’ve met the most. Our weekly meetings at Drive-In Woodlands, over a coffee and book have fortified many a late night in office


• Divya – A damn cool girl, this despite the fact she criticises every design I come up with.


• Suman – This guy is his blog’s alter-ego. Cool, composed and among a few with whom I can be me


• Yazad – The Lord of the Cartel, in a totally jovial way. A guy responsible for my expanded vocabulary – making words like Libertarianism, Anarcho-capitalism and more, part of my daily conversations


• Ravikiran – Besides sharing the same zodiac, and school of thought, I started blogging two weeks after he did. If one guy inspires me to be coldly logical, it’s he.


• Gaurav – I really don’t have to add anything new about Gaurav, do I?


• Aadisht – A real cool person to hang with. His fun takes on daily routine still has me in splits


• Madhu Menon – Besides the fact that he maintains my blog, listens patiently to my wholly unreasonable demands and complaints about this blog, runs one of the best retaurants I’ve dined at, points out every typo and spelling error I make, I know nothing of this person.


• Sudhon – This guy, now AWOL, organised the first ever blog meet I attended. And was directly responsible for my meeting most of the Chennai Bloggers I’ve met


• Satish – There are two things certain in life. His comments and taxes. I can always evade taxes


• Nirenjan – Coming up with a funny description of him is a difficult ask. Sincere, sober and great pal


• Charu – Somebody who believes in me more than I do. And infectiously so. I still haven’t thanked her enough for a lot of things


• Amit – It’s a bit difficult classifying Amit. Do I put him down as a friend for all times, or somebody I can’t wait to know more about? I guess he can straddle both easily.


• Ravikumar – Here’s one more person who thinks I hardly, if ever, go wrong. Shares my love of coffee and books


• Anand – A year my senior in school. Acts a year junior in enthusiasm, when it comes to blog meets, offline activities and stuff. I’ve had many conversations with him about films, screenplay, advertising, creativity and other such stuff. Great old friend.


• Nilu – Another old-school pal. Am I going to endanger myself talking about him, or to him? I really don’t care.

In no particular order

It would be really unfair to not talk about some other great people I’ve met. Harini, Dina, Prabhu, Harish, Praveen, Ramya, Vaijayanthi, Somu, Sheky, Vijay Venkatesh, Anil, Pleo, Sudish, Ramnath, Shyam, Aparna, Bajji, Muthu, Yardboy being some of them. (again, no particular order)

At last count, my blogroll was 150 links long. It’s really difficult to go through everyone of them. If I left you out, purely unintentional. I really am happy I met you all. I only wish I could do this for a living.

As to some who I know almost as myself, but still haven’t met – I can hardly wait. Michael, Patrix, Selva, Arnab, Karthik, Aekta, Anita, Hemanth, Jax, Debashish, Alpha, Kaps, Nitin, Mukundan, JK, Semantic Overload, Arun, Sumit and the rest of my incredibly long blogroll.

Thanks all for the conversation, the fun and the writing.