With this question Gora (he-who-should-blog-but-never-does) got nearly all speakers who landed in Delhi on Thursday to land up at JNU. Feels like home – the planning is being done out in the open in front of the speakers, the wireless depends on Raj Mathur (OldMonk) to figure out the cryptic calligraphy that has the necessary bits from Andrew, Kishore is waiting on Gora to make some changes in the schedule and Gora is waiting on someone to provide him the power for the router. So in the midst of all this we eat some delicious dal vada and wait for things to settle down. And we hear that the halls are being named “Gyaan” and “Dhyaan”. This looks like it is going to be a long haul and its going to be much later than the promised 2030 before we go for the hotel 😉 Fun knows no bounds when Gora and Tirveni get Pradeepto to stand under the neem tree outside Palam for his pickup. He waits … and finally calls back to get something going about his pickup.

The volunteers are kicking up some serious butt – they are putting the swags into the bag, procuring/purchasing the last minute stuff and of course just being around when needed. This is an inspired gang of people. I slipped some GNOME badges/buttons into the swag bag and hopefully we will see folks wearing them. That generally flies out like crazy.
We end up going to the place to stay at Gurgaon “Mall View” thanks to Kishore – the Merciful, who drives us down including the souls from FreeMap. We order pizza en route and join up with Pradeepto and Aanjhan to gorge on them before hitting the bed for the day.

Is it different from how conferences usually goes ? You bet it is. It is as close to a family atmosphere as you can be. If you aren’t there this time. You are missing enough fun that can recharge your batteries.