When Bloggers Met the Painters

This was an event that I almost missed. When I first received the invitation over email to join IndiBlogger team along with BergerXP for a grand event in Kolkata I was sure that I was going to visit it. I had initially planned to photo document the event in detail and specially meet some of my fellow bloggers who I had only communicated through IndiBlogger and never seen them face to face.

Around a week before this event my world turned upside down, my daughter became seriously ill and had to be hospitalised. I lost count of everything, forgot to inform my relatives, forgot to post new blogs, lost count of date and time etc. In all this I completely cancelled out attending the BergerXP – IndiBlogger meet.

A day before the event Indrajit Das who is a fellow blogger and have become a real close friend of mine enquired if I would be coming to the event or not. He was well aware of my present situation and was regularly in touch with me during my time of crisis, maybe he wanted me to just disconnect for some time to relax my mind. Initially I responded negatively but in my mind I had promised that if my daughter shows sign of recovery then only I will go and attend this event.

The day finally came and in the morning I could see dramatic improvement in my daughter’s health and the same was also confirmed by the doctor. Finally I began to relax and called up Indrajit who was already at the venue along with Sumit Surai and confirmed that I will be joining up soon. I just wanted to go and free my mind since for nearly a week I was staying at the hospital and really needed couple of hours reset myself. My wife also encouraged me to go for this event as even she could see the level of stress getting into me.

I was actually not prepared, no camera and no laptop so all my initial plans for live tweets with DSLR photographs was not possible but I just wanted to go and meet bloggers.

So finally I reached the venue at around 4.30 PM, Indrajit and Sumit were all waiting for me at the reception area. Registered myself for the event and finally I was here at the BergerXP – IndiBlogger event.

The event got off to a thumping start with superb song  Ich Will by Rammstein, all the participants sang along creating an electrifying environment. This was followed by an introduction of the IndiBlogger team, finally I could put a face to all the team members.

Anoop Johnson then randomly asked bloggers to introduce themselves and say something about their blog followed by a tip about blogging from each.

This was followed by a much needed tea break and also gave us an opportunity to meet new bloggers (to me). Sumit, Indrajit and I went crazy and did some really obnoxious photo shoot.

We saw some promotional videos from Berger which was really interesting considering the fact that I have been struggling with the thought of painting the whole house this December. It’s somewhat a tradition for us to paint our house before Christmas and it becomes real headache with the local painters since I have to skip office just to direct them what to do and what not to.

Most of these painters are untrained thus needs to be well directed else they will surely mix up something or the other. For example last year we decided to use Acrilyic Emulsion paint inside the house which has a wider cover area but the painters did a blunder by mixing paint and water to the wrong ratio. This resulted in paint peeling within two months of painting. Another issue was scrubbing the walls well before painting or applying putty, invariably they will miss some patch and once the paint job is done will leave an ugly depression in the wall clearly visible even from a distance.

During the Berger demo I saw the Sanding Machine which I guess will surely solve the sanding issue and give a perfect smooth wall. Also since this tool has a special dust collecting bag I will not have any dust allergy and my father who suffers from asthma will be absolutely safe.

The High Pressure Washer is surely helpful and the moss laden walls of my terrace walls will surely see the light of the day again. This device will also help take out oil and grease in the kitchen walls which is really difficult to remove.

Mixing worries are more or less over with the Multipurpose Mixer this will really ensure a consistent mixing of paint or putty. Undissolved paint particles on the wall will be history for sure with this device.

And finally gone are the days of paint brushes, with the Airless Paint Sprayer & Auto Roller the walls will surely get a smooth finish and of course the coverage will be much more since there would be no more dripping and unnecessary wastage.

So this Christmas I will surely call team Berger to help me out of my painting worries and to deliver me a hassle free paint job which would last for at least few years.

It was now fun time and we had two exiting team games lined up, our team consisting of eight team members unanimously decided to name our team “Octopus”.

The first game was “Sanding Game”, each team needs to sand a piece of board which is covered with Plaster of Paris. The idea is to make it smooth with sand paper and the team that does is the quickest is the winner.

This was followed by a Theme Based Painting game, each team had to paint a canvas with a particular social theme. Colours, brushes, palette & apron were all provided to each team and the activity had to be completed within a stipulated time.

We were in high hopes that our team Octopus would be the winner but unfortunately we were not. However the biggest victory for us and me particularly was winning new friends Tuhin, Antara, Nivedita, Arunima.

It was not all disappointment, two of our team members won prizes. Tuhin won for the best Tweet of the day and Sumit won for the best Photo Tweet of the day. By the way for the record the guy drinking water from the toilet is me J and this the one that won the prize.

The event was finally over and the last act of the day was the group photo which was followed by the official dinner. I had real good time here and would be forever thankful to BergerXP and IndiBlogger for creating such a wonderful event which for few hours let me smile. I skipped the dinner as I had to rush back to the hospital as my daughter was waiting for me and I had to oblige since my real happiness was my princess.

p.s. My daughters health has improved much now and for sure will get my house painted with #BergerXP this Christmas.

Thank you for letting me use your photographs:-

Indrajit Das 

Sumit Surai

Poorna Banerjee 

Rangan Dutta