Twitter as you all know is a new form of social media which is catching up very fast. I am also an active twitterer and am popularly known as @ePandu in the big twitter verse. Being from Kolkata I realized that not many people who are from Kolkata actively tweet. The big world of twitter introduced me to BarCamps, Tweetups, Start Up Saturdays and what not. What really disappointed me was that none of these actually happened in Kolkata. It was only in Jan 2009 that the first ever BarCamp of Kolkata was held at the IIT Kharagpur Extension in Salt Lake, all thanks to @iMBA and @artagnon. Thanks to BarCamp I met a few people from twitter and the first ever tweet up also occurred in Kolkata on the very same day. All this happened way back in Jan 2nd 2009 and after that I was really disappointed seeing no gradual increase in the number of twitterer’s from Kolkata. I tried to arrange one tweetup when @ashishmohta came to Kolkata, but only me, @ashishmohta and @aritra_m turned up for the meet.

Soon things changed and today i.e. on 21st June 2009 a major tweetup finally occurred in Kolkata. It was originally mine’s and @bassyc’s idea and thanks to @arjunghosh it became popular. After a lot of discussion, chaos and suggestions, the final place for the meet up for was decided. The place was McDonalds at Park Street and the time was around 4PM. I and @aritra_m where the first to reach the place and were waiting outside McDonald’s for other guys. The big problem we faced was that we did not have the number of all the twitterer’s who were attending the meet up. We were roaming outside McDonalds when suddenly a guy came and stood near us. He was looking towards us and I and @aritra_m were looking towards him. We had no idea whether that guy came for the tweetup and then I asked the guy “Twitter?” and he responds “Yes!”. Finally after an introduction session we came to know that it was @nimbus3000. All three of us were chatting when @aritra_m pointed towards a guy and said I think he is here for the tweetup. Just then I received an sms from @hussulinux saying “Where art thou?”. I then sms’ed him saying I, @aritra_m and @nimbus3000 are standing outside McDonalds and I am wearing a pink shirt. Then we were looking towards the guy whom we thought was here for the tweetup. As soon as I sent @hussulinux an sms, the guy’s phone buzzed and we understood that he is @hussulinux. Just then @Shrabasti also came and met @hussulinux. Then we went towards @hussulinux and @Shrabasti and the usual introduction session was went. Just then @theevilp also came directly to us and asked us “Tweetup?”. We all replied Yes!. After the introduction round we all decided to go inside McDonald’s  and wait for other guys.

After around 15mins we finally found a place where at least 8-10 people can sit. During these 15mins my classmate @ankit_j also came. Soon we all were chatting when @bassyc and @sahaanirban came. After both of them introduced each other everyone started chatting about various things. Soon i received a call from @arjunghosh asking me where I was. I told him our location and he found us out. Then @theevilp saw that there were a lot of free tables at the Ground Floor so we went down, found a got place to sit and finally settled down. Just then @nambuj came and since there were a lot of new people, again an introduction round started. After the introduction round, we all were discussing about where everyone lives and what they do. Soon I came to know that @nambuj lives in the *same* block I live and I never met him. Also when @nambuj asked @Shrabasti where she lives?, @Shrabasti replied – Ruby Hospital :P. After that there was a photo session and @aritra_m did a good job by clicking a picture from his N85 and uploading it to twitpic and tweet it at that very moment. @ankit_j and @aritra_m along with a few other people were live tweeting about the meet up. I could not tweet because I was using a spare Nokia 6681 and its keypad is bullshit.

During all these chat session @hussulinux said that he is a mobile software developer to which @arjunghosh replied “We need to talk”. Soon @Creativewolf joined us and again when @arjunghosh came to know that @Creativewolf does something related to BPO (I forgot what he does, Sorry!), @arjunghosh replied his trademarked line “We Need to Talk” :P. Soon everyone was feeling hungry and so we had some French fries and few guys also had some soft drinks. During the tweetup, @GauravSaha who is also originally from Kolkata called up @Shrabasti and even though I did not talk to him, his phone call made me sure that how excited he was for the tweetup and how desperately he wanted to be there. Most of the guys who were a part of the tweetup were college students while a few of them work. Also @hussulinux, @Shrabasti, @nambuj and @theevilp had graduated from the Symbiosis college of Pune. Also the way @ankit_j was asking @CreativeWolf about BPO related stuff it seemed that he would join @CreativeWolf’s company after he passed his +2. :P When @CreativeWolf was leaving @hussulinux and @arjunghosh had a mini-business related tweet up which I hope helped all of them. Meanwhile, @subhr0 also joined us (Yes he was *very* late, but at least he did come) along with a friend of his. We had a chat about various stuff’s including twitter, Kolkata, Mac vs. Windows vs. Linux. During all these discussion @hussulinux asked everyone a question “Will you use twitter if it was a paid service?”. It sure was an interesting question and we got many interesting answers as well.

Soon it was time for everyone to leave and soon we all left and after a round of Hand shakes the First Ever Major Tweetup of Kolkata came to an end :). For the people who missed this tweet up, trust me you missed something big for sure.

Here is a picture of today’s meet up – http://twitpic.com/7zykg and here @arjunghosh has mentioned everyone’s twitter handle.

P.S. – I can write a hell lot more about today’s tweet up but I am ending the blog post abruptly because its already too big which makes me wonder how many people will actually read it.

P.P.S. – Ignore all grammatical error’s, typos and other error’s as I wrote this post in ultra quick time.