Meet with Aminah

"So no cricket tomorrow?"
"No."
" Bangalore Bolero Club is making waves huh?"
" Well we are trying to."
"Ok good. Any presentations you guys are making."
"No, it’s an informal meet set up by Chandrika. We will mostly be talking about the club and how we can help these folks who are driving from Bangalore to Bhutan."

And that’s how the conversation went between me and my wife on Friday evening prior to the BBC meet next day.

The past week has been a bit of a tragic one for me. The fire at Carlton Towers has left a deep scar. Work was put off and to divert my attention, I was browsing through my usual list of websites. The top one being the BBC community on orkut.

New topic: Weekend meet with Aminah regarding Bhutan Trip by Chandrika.

Interesting.

Bhutan?

I thought the plan was Leh.

Read the post and clarified Leh (BBC Trip) is on and Aminah (a friend of Shonan) who as a group are into travels across India wanted to meet us - The BBC members.

Interesting.

Called up Chandrika and raised my hand to take care of the meet.

Got off the phone and called Shiva. He was one of the first to say he is on - as always.

While speaking to Shiva, he mentions Aminah's profile on facebook and whether she is the same.

Probably.

Get off the call - search Aminah on Facebook. Turns up as a friend of Shonan and Chandrika.

Some pics of her interviewing the hero of Quick Gun Murugan. :D

About Aminah, she is a journalist for NDTV and is quite interested in travel. Has her contacts and uses them well.

Two days later get a call from Aminah and we discuss the meet details.

The day is set for Saturday and time around 11:00 to 13:00 at IVY on Outer Ring Road, Bangalore.

A few posts on the orkut community and we have a sizeable number for the meet.

The folks who said they are in were:

1. Abhijeet, me ofcourse :D
2. Anil, with a laptop and working on a Saturday sitting in a resort with a beer - inspirational stuff.
3. Arvind, showed up a bit late with his logo and Tshirt designs.
4. Ashwin, first meet for him. The quieter kinds but very interested in the Club’s activities.
5. Girish, nice to see him after a long time.
6. Mathew, looked lost without Chandrika around.
7. Shiva, he talked tires and more tires.
8. Thomas Cheta is Mr Cool. Paid the tab and insisted on not taking the money from us. We didn’t agree though.

Once everyone was chilled out with a beer and Shiva with a glass of milk we got down to business.

Aminah explained their goal behind this cross country and border crossing drive. They as a group want to help out in any small measure the villages they pass through. It maybe for education, better sanitation or purely to make any small difference they can. They are being provided the vehicles by Mahindra - 2 Scorpio's. One a 4WD and the other a 2WD. In terms of support Mahindra will be providing them service throughout the route. Other sponsors have pitched in too with small measures.

So where does BBC come in.

Since the original plan was to start from Bangalore. The idea was to get like minded people together (bitten with the travel bug) have some interactions and we give them a good send off from our city.

But the plan now is revised to starting from Bangalore with the BBC folks instead. We merry folk agreed to drive down the Bangalore members of Aminah's group to Mumbai in our Boleros. Meet the rest of her team in Mumbai. Get them started from there and head back home.

So what does BBC get.

We get "known" as a club to a wider set of people. We get a mention on their blogs, facebook page and website.

We make a lot more friends.

We can pitch our Leh trip through her group and try and get similar sponsors – no we wouldn’t need the Scorpio’s.

Further course of action for BBC:

We should have a meet sometime soon to get the rest of the details sorted out.

The other things required to be done is get the Tshirts and the stickers ready before the drive to Mumbai.

The website should be up. Being discussed elsewhere on the orkut community.

Oh and the dates are sometime mid -April for the drive to commence. Keep this page bookmarked for updates.

And finally, a note to self. GET THE FREAKING WRITEUP OUT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.