We’ve had some rough times in the bunker…when Manish and Vinod first broke up…when Ennis was told he couldn’t smuggle anymore adoring groupies in and pass them off as interns…when Manish and Vinod broke up again…when the lemurs went on strike to protest the lack of parties…when one of our guest bloggers developed a very rare allergic reaction to…ah, never mind.
My point is, what we faced before were minor challenges; this has been a rather difficult week, as we confronted far more sobering matters, which affected us all. This week, we dealt with real pain, as tragedy reminded us of how fleeting life actually is. Such “big news” always means more traffic, which means more moderating and more possibilities for this or worse, this.
So, I’m a little down right now and I know many of you are, too. This is what I propose to lift our sepia spirits: an eleventh-hour sort of meetup at reliable and hospitable Heritage India this weekend. Perhaps what this community needs is…more community. Let’s bond, y’all! You know you want to. All are welcome: trolls, lurkers, smurfs and elves included. Vogons, however, will not be tolerated, since it’s highly possible that they might be feeling poetic and no one deserves that.
We can do brunch like we did the first time we were there, at the third DC Meetup or we can have dinner like we did the last time we were there, at the fourth DC meetup which was also our first-ever SM Channukah extravaganza. No, that wasn’t convoluted at all. 😉 The more significant issue is that we haven’t met up in FOUR MONTHS.
Dinner on Saturday, April 21 at 8ish
or
Brunch on Sunday, April 22 at Noonish it is!
Either way, I feel like it is an apposite time to revisit Heritage; I’ve had a sad sort of craving for Golgoppas and I’d like to sate that, in memory of someone else who loved them.
FYI: Heritage is Metro accessible (Red line).
Heritage India Brasserie
1337 Connecticut Ave NW
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 331-1114
throwing jealous rage Damnit why not NY? We need love too! 🙁
Come down to DC! Like Miranda once said on SATC, there is life beyond Manhattan. 😉
I keep wanting to go to a meet up and they are always at times when I have plans! BTW, Asha for Women, a DC nonprofit that supports South Asian survivors of domestic violence is having its gala on Saturday night. No pressure 😉
Hey, I’d prefer Sunday brunch anyway! Would you be able to make that?
I definitely can’t do Sunday dinner, but I ought to be able to make Sunday brunch around Noon. As a good Hindu boy, however, I request that people not put their impure feet on me.
You are NO fun, DTK.
Awesome. Three for brunch already (one of you RSVPd offline!).
Anna, I’ll so be there in spirit. I know you’ll blog it and flickr it, really look forward to that. One of these days I will attend in person! Meanwhile Eat up at the Meetup, and get all the love you have coming.
In other news, the White House Correspondents Dinner is this weekend too. I’m not invited, but Sanjaya ‘American Idol’ Malakar will be coming to town to attend it. With his mother.
Hey, Papaya will be in town over the weekend, maybe we can get him to come to our meetup!!
A N N A- Unfortunately I don’t live anywhere near the District, but I will pass the info along to my sisters who does. Your writing about the VT incident has been very touching. I admit that I have been snarky/skeptical in the past, but you have really shown what a compassionate and sensitive heart you have. Keep up the good work. I really appreciate all you have done.
I’m a looooooong-time lurker. I haven’t been commenting recently, but I lurve SM. I’m in DC, and so’s my street cred (my desi boo). It is finals time, but I may be able to peel myself out of the books for a couple of hours. Can I put us down as tentative Sunday brunch attendees?
Can you show up without RSVPing?
Is there any rules about how long a person has been looking at this website?? Does not really matter. It is going to be a bit hard to cross the Atlantic, But for future reference.
Who ever ends up going have fun time.
People have shown up at meetups who have never read our website. All are welcome, sincerely.
Lizzie, my greeneyed fem, I am THRILLED that I might get to finally meet you! No street cred necessary, yaar. 😉
No, you do not need to RSVP, but it would make my life a lot easier if you did, so I can make sure we all sit together. Also, it looks like it’s going to be BRUNCH. The early birds have spoken. I’ll amend the post when I wake up…it’s past my bedtime.
Hmm. Have we established some sort of lurker protocol, or does brunch mean ripping off your blanket of anonymity?
I would be out of place there,because I am like the drunken Uncke everybody would want to avoid. I can’t help it I love to party.
This lurker would LOVE to join, but Sat conflicts with a wedding and Sun conflicts with church 🙁 Perhaps I could skip, but are we quite certain all lurkers are welcome? Even those (wrongfully) accused of tollery due to IP conflicts? May I tentatively RSVP?
*trollery
anna,
i wish to attend. this is the official RSVP.
Me rolls my eyes and looks at his citymates 🙂
Bakvaas. When’s the next NYC/NJ meetup? Can we have an unofficial one?
lol, loved the part where you threw that in!
14) No, not necessarily. No one is going to force you to reveal your “handle”, though we often go around and state them, so we know who everyone is. 🙂 We’ve had at least one attendee at every meetup that I have been to/organized, who had NEVER commented…and most of them still haven’t. I’m serious, all are welcome. Please come.
15) If ever there were a culture that teaches us how to manage Uncles everyone wants to avoid… 😉 Drunk Uncles are welcome, if not encouraged.
16) Well, I go to church too and that’s why brunch is an early afternoon sort of thing; I’ll be coming to this straight from services. If it’s anything like the last time we did brunch (which was awesome), we’ll meander to some coffee place or similar and hang out for another 3-4 hours, so don’t count yourself out yet. 🙂 Get my mobile offline and ping me to find out where we are so you can find us either getting
secondsfourths or caffeine.And all lurkers are welcome. Especially if there were misunderstandings about trollery. That way I can sincerely apologize to you in person (and demonstrate that really, I’m not evil…not most of the time at least).
Seriously, if there has been tension, I’d be extra excited to meet you, so we can fix it and make it all better.
18) Awesome. Excited to meet you. Thanks for being so considerate and making coordinating this easier.
19) What city are you rolling your eyes in? Remember, I can only promise DC, NYC and SF, in that order of probability. 😉
20) Come now dear child. 🙂 You know it ain’t no thang for me to rush to NY. Three out of the eight albums in my flickr collection are from NYC meetups. If there is interest, let’s schedule something; I would be happy to co-host with Siddhartha. Or host by myself if the Ill Hindu is out of town/occupied/ill etc. I just need enough notice to make plans.
yeah yeah, windy city people wake up! its good weather now! Anna, I was rolling eyes in Chicago. (not that I wanted to hijack the thread, but you asked)
There is interest. Schedule something and I am sure you will have a full house.
Awww…this sunday is a no-go for me but please have a smashing time and eat some ‘dhaal’ for me!
praise be to ANNA! i was hoping for another gathering soon. rsvp for 1, with a potential for an additional, uninitiated mutineer.
and i just caught the hitchhikers reference. brilliant.
sounds like fun! maybe in the not so distant future we’ll have an la meetup.
Is it a girl? I sincerely hope so. I don’t want to be the only one (Lizzie: I’m looking at you. Say you’re a sure thing. 😀 )
haha. sadly, no. [insert sad violin sample]
Oooo – motivation to get lots done today and tomorrow! Okay, I’m officially RSVPing for two.
Squee! I’m excited to meet people. See y’all Sunday!
And thanks, ANNA, for making me feel so welcome, despite my site invisibility. 🙂 Mostly I like to hunker down in a quiet corner and see what-all people are saying. There’ve been a couple of times I’ve meant to jump in, but the thread was closed before I could. But this place is seriously in my top morning-coffee blogreading. So double-squee with a side of happy about the meet-up – I hated missing the one in December.
hehe I moved from md to orange co, ca. working on an la meetup anyone?
All are welcome: trolls, lurkers, smurfs and elves included
DC is outside my range, but excuse my skepticism, I find it hard to believe if a person is railed on here, they’d be accepted with open arms in a meetup? I wonder if anyone has any anecdotal data that would state otherwise?
NY NY NY!! oh well, this is my first comment even though I have been reading for months. So wonder how much weightage this is gonna have hehe. But definitely, annarakannanum thanaalayathu, ennale (malayalam saying, translated- doing my tiny bit to lobby for NY)
this sucks: i’m only free between 3 – 7pm, when the kitchen is probably closed. alas, and i was going to bring girls w/ me too…
Your skepticism is…excused? Have you ever read a wrap-up or post which contained a comment which stated that someone was mistreated? If your skepticism was aimed at me, I promise you that I am not so petty that I would carry some…feud?…offline. People are accepted with open arms and they are usually mine, since I hug everyone; it’s a California thing.
The offline world IS different from the online one; just as people wouldn’t dream of being as nasty or insensitive IRL as they are when comfortably in front of a screen, the dynamics go the other way too. I would never let someone at a meetup be attacked or railed on or otherwise made to feel uncomfortable. That is something I take so seriously.
The most common bit of feedback I get from meetup attendees is how surprised they were at how comfortable they felt.
I think we need this meetup now, more than ever, to clear the air here, to demonstrate that this is not a clique, it’s a community.
Maybe my anecdote doesn’t count, because I’m not a lurker or whatever, but I’ve coordinated and attended the majority of the meetups we’ve held and people really enjoyed, if not loved them. Look at the pictures, see for yourself.
Not to threadjack or anything, but which part of that translates to ‘NY’, exactly? 🙂 Besides which, it’s clear that Malayalam is amazingly palindromic, especially when transliterated in Roman, and ‘anna’ is its most common bisyllabic !
@ HMF
ANNA forces us to eat large quantities and makes us sit under the table. just a warning.
Jay, when I hug you, I’m going to do that secret-spy-death thing to the back of your neck and tell everyone you fainted from my overpowering french perfuuuume. It’ll be our first snuff meetup. Can’t wait!
Msichana, El Capitan and I have a hiking excursion planned and probably won’t be back ’till 2 or so. If you guys do anything after brunch let me know. I’ll try to drag the two of them out with me.
count me in. this frequent lurker (almost) never misses a meetup. thanks, anna!
We’ll be there until 2:30, when they close. All three of you best show up. Why not hike earlier and then come back all ravenous and devour food– it IS all you can eat. 😀
I’ll be there, so count another girl in. ANNA, thanks for being so hospitable. I’ll give you an email to get your number since I’ll be driving in from VA.
I’ll see what I can do. I’ll drop you a line once we get back into the city.
Is Salil Maniktahla out there?
You so awesome-ly urged me to attend the DC meet-up last fall (which I punked out on), and I wanted to return the favor. In town? Out of town? Not down? I hope you show. 🙂
No, it wasn’t aimed at you.
That’s true for sure. I’m not equating the two worlds, however “being attacked and riled against” isn’t necessarily the same as “not being accepted” And I wasn’t alluding to a meetup being a ring fight with you as ref and other bloggers taking bets. But, at a sort of “common sense” level, if someone were to introduce themselves and say, “I post with handle so-and-so” and if enough people remember “oh that was the guy that said. bla bla bla” it could taint someone’s first impression.
That’s all. But I guess it doesn’t happen, as people don’t really remember what other people said, in that setting. I’m sure it’s doubly true for you, you get “feuded” on enough times, that I’d imagine you’d lose track.
That’s right! All the way upto Brooklyn. Some say even as far away as Yonkers. Just jokiiing!
ANNA: i have no issues being put down with the secret-spy-death thing, but i kindly request that you do so after i’ve have an opportunity to enjoy my food.
ANNA:
My finals end May 11. If you feel like organizing something up here after that, I am so down. I’ll even help you organize it if you’d like. 😀