Sixteen of you showed up to one decadent brunch at Heritage India in Dupont on Sunday afternoon; afterwards, most of us meandered over to the Cosi across Connecticut Avenue because we couldn’t bear to stop listening to and laughing with each other. What a FANTASTIC meetup (click the picture above to enlarge it, if you’d like proof of that). DC’s fifth was easily its best and that’s saying a LOT.

That makes what I have to type next even worse. I know. You mutineers are disappointed in my lack of prompt meetup writingup; if it is any consolation, you can’t possibly be as irritated as the actual attendees, some of whom came all the way from New Jersey and Florida, all of whom watched me type furtively and furiously, only to later wonder, “WTF?” as references to one of the BEST events we’ve ever hosted in any city popped up on my diary blog and my ancient fotolog. Will you reduce the number of spankings I deserve if I point out that I flickr’d the album of photographs from the meetup that same night? All 72 of them? No? Damn.

Well, here’s the cringe-inducing story, morning glories. I am an idiot. I am so used to Microsoft word saving, checking and wiping my kundi for me that I have become ridiculously lazy. I no longer do any of the above on my own (okay fine, maybe I do one of them) because I just assume it will all be taken care of…and by assuming…oh, how I’ve made an ass out of you and me. Or maybe just me.

I lost everything, because I no longer HAVE MS Word on my uber-adored iBook. I have whatever no-nonsense word-processing crap it comes with…and while it worked just dandy for my purposes, it taught me a very expensive lesson by not spoiling me via auto-save. Le sigh. If only I had been able to get online to liveblog all the mischievous merrymaking…

I’m not exaggerating– this was one of the funniest seven-hour conversations this website has ever inspired and it’s awful you won’t get to read any of it.

Here’s an example of what went down:

PORN!

This still reduces me to giggles. Ok, I’m going to summarize for the benefit of the poor people who were unable to share in the joy that was Sunday’s DC Meetup. Be warned, the following description is NSFW or children.

At a certain point in the conversation, our beloved ANNA decides to STAND UP and wax eloquent about this great new reality show she’s discovered…”Debbie Does Dallas Again.” She relates this great moment wherein our favorite brown porn star, Sunny Leone, is seeking career advice FROM HER BROTHER, and actually begins to mimic a certain act. “Should I start doing boy-girl?” our Anna yells, “because if I do, it’ll mean I have to do double-penetration,” and here she pantomimes with her hands…um…well…fellatio and spelunking the small hole, if you will. One hand forward, one hand back, so to speak.

Now, this wouldn’t be so bad if we’d had the restaurant to ourselves, which we did right up until roughly that moment. But fortuitously, a largish gaggle of desis wandered in at JUST THAT POINT, children in tow. While the parents were discussing whether to park themselves at a table, two or three 8-to-10-year old boys walked to the door, then froze there, utterly stunned, mouth agape, transfixed by Anna’s enthusiastic rendering of her new favorite TV show.

This led some of us to comment that Anna had more-or-less kick-started puberty in a few kids that day, and that there would be some interesting Q&A sessions with the parents in the Accord / Camry on the way home that night. “Mommy, I feel funny…in my pants.”

I still get the giggles when I think of the total expressionless intent stare on the faces of those kids while watching you, AJ. Pure gold!

Here’s what I remember:

• When I did that aforementioned Sunny Leone impersonation which set the tone for the entire day, the one person who was supposed to photograph this (or more appositely, wideo tape it!) was so concomitantly astonished and appalled, he never turned on the camera. You can see a shot of my, ahem, very vivid acting in the center pic/bottom row of the collage above.

• When SJM mentioned that his botched last name was his clan name, I asked about his tartan. Oh, shut it– you had to be there (and why weren’t you? Hmmmm??)

• We got a brief introduction to parkour, which I associate with my favorite Bond flick (DBS! DB5!)of all time. There might be a meetup organized around THAT opportunity to break every bone in your body– wheee! I will NOT be hosting that. 😉

• While at brunch at Heritage India, I ordered chai then watched as everyone else got…SODA. Was I the ONLY DESI PERSON there? I might have been, but it was the awesome gori who ate with her hands, sending me in to a shame spiral because I lack such skillz.

• “May I give you an inappropriate hug?” was asked at least a dozen times. Two of you were baffled as to why they were inappropriate in the first place. Well, anything I do tends to be and besides, ve are South Asian. No touching hanky pankies betveen the boys and the girls, vokay?

• And the ONLY memory I have worth sharing is the following convo:

Mutineer: “Well, you know…you could always just get sperm frozen”

Me: “I don’t know why that isn’t more popular in the desi community…such a no-brainer…”

Mutineer #2: “Excuse me?”

Me: “Yeah, like I don’t know why brown parents don’t schlep their mortified 12-year old son to the clinic and go, ‘okay beta, make shame shame in the cup please?’ as soon as its physically possible…there is such an all-consuming obsession with passing on one’s genes, with having an heir.”

All mutineers: (Horrified and yet intrigued)

Me: “This way, if something happens to their precious royal beta, they still get to sire grandchildren. It’s so pragmatic– freezing spare heir juice.”

Mutineer #1: “SPARE HEIR JUICE?!”

😀

::

So someone asked me via flickr what exactly occurs at these meetups and I did an impromptu list, which I am going to past here, since it contains a few relevant highlights:

So what happens at these meetups ?

Yo, your fault for asking! 😉

1) Far too much inappropriate hugging

2) Laughing which makes hyenas feel embarrassed for us

3) Eating. And more eating. Especially the part of the dal makhani which had a creamy yellow butter crown resting atop it. Sweeeeet.

4) Chai drinking. Plenty of that, of course.

5) Marriage arranging…except everyone forgot their bloody biodatas, yaar. Vat I am to do?

6) Talking about anything and everything, with everyone, even though you didn’t know them from Adam 15 minutes ago. 🙂

7) Porn. 😉

8) Storytelling of the, "you think THAT is bad"-sort. In other words, it’s a quest to see who can one-up whom while regaling us all of how severely and creatively they were punished for doing anything besides studying and breathing.

9) Lots of number-exchanging and plan-making. I think former strangers are hiking next week! I’m taking someone brown-grocery shopping.

10) Pure, unbelievably awesome, long-lasting (seven hours!) FUN.

When do I get to meet YOU at one? 😀 I host them in DC, NYC and SF.

::

I’m hoping our attendees add their own impressions/memories, beyond those they kindly typed here…? 🙂