<p><p>So last week around this time I was somewhere in Calicut eating appams with awesome chicken curry and vegetable stew with a real cool people as company :) .</p><p></p><p><p>I was at <a href="http://www.nitc.ac.in/nitc/index.jsp">NITC</a> to attend <a href="http://www.foss.nitc.ac.in/">FOSS.Meet@NIT</a> from Friday to Monday. Was there to give a talk on <a href="http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt">Qt</a> like last year but it was Qt 4 this year unlike last year's Qt 3. So I was supposed to leave on Thursday by train - Netravati ( Konkan Railways :), which stops right at my door stop but had to take Friday's morning Jet flight instead as mentioned in my previous post. The flight was basically uneventful other than 30 minutes delay since it arrived from Delhi late or some such. So I waited at the new cafe thingie at the Terminal 1-B. I had never been there before so thought - "what the heck? lets try this one. You live only once" or some such. Went upstairs to that place and after reading the freaking menu, I realised that from samosas to murg masalaam to everything was pretty expensive. I didn't want to leave though because I had loads of time to kill. So ordered Ice-Lemon tea and Potato Wedges dipped in Schezwan sauce. Was set back by few hundred bucks :/. Anyways the only interesting thing while I was in the flight : the airhostess 's name : <i>"Assumption"</i>. Yups, Assumption was her name. :). Food in the flight was pretty ok. Seat 10-A sucks though ( unless you are tall and need lots of leg space ) :/</p><p></p><p><p><b>Day Zero</b></p><p><p>Reached Calicut and took a taxi to NIT. It seemed pretty far, almost 1 hour taxi ride. I was here last year even, I had travelled by train then, that railway station was much neared to NIT. The Taxi driver didn't know where NIT was so, I called <a href="http://kushaldas.in">Kushal</a> who was with Praveen - the dude who started this event 3 years back. Praveen gave nice instructions which were l10n()ed ( localised ) even :). After reaching the campus. almost immediately met Basil who took care of the taxi fare and Deepak Malani whom I knew from last year's meet. Was take straight to the guest house where I met <a href="http://technofreakatchennai.wordpress.com/">Parthan</a> and Vivek Khurana. Was meeting Vivek for the firs time. KDE-hugs followed ;). Apparently Parthan and I were sharing a room. And interestingly I was put up in the Room #18, same room where I was last year as well. Met up with Kushal and Praveen after a while when they dropped into our room. The gang from Bangalore, <a href="http://atulchitnis.net/">Atul Chitnis</a>, Shreyas Srinivasan, Tejas Dinkar and <a href="http://www.kiruba.com">Kiruba Shankar</a> came in shortly.</p><p></p><p><p>So in the evening started with lots students, faculty, speakers and volunteers. Ofcourse the proceedings were happening at Aryabhatta hall, the biggest of them all the halls. The guests gave their speeches and the customary lighting of lamp was done. After a small break, Atul gave the keynote talk. Interesting points he made and I liked the way he explained who should these students get involved in foss. <i>"Why would he hire/prefer a candidate who is involved with foss over the one who is/was not involved with foss?"</i> Perfect points, I agree completely. He pointed out how Tejas a student like these guys from NITC is involved with FOSS projects. The talk was excellently done but that's not new, is it? I have heard him speak at FOSS.in many times. Hope some students got enough inspired to do something. Next we went for dinner at the guest house. Then back to the Aryabhatta, for Kiruba's talk about blogging/expression and what not. Love his style of talking, no slides, running all around the hall. "Interacting" would be more apt than talking. Thus ended a fine evening.</p><p></p><p><p><b>Day One</b></p><p><p>Next day there were many talks in 4 different tracks/halls. I attended a few of them. Specifically CN Krishnan's NRCFOSS talk after which I chatted up with him a bit. Nice guy to talk to, really nice. Met up with <a href="http://www.tuxmaniac.com">Aanjhan</a>, who arrived early morning. Its always great to meet him - very witty and mischievious fellow. Had met him briefly in January in Chennai when I went there to attend my best friend's wedding. Apparently we first met in an autorickshaw in Bangalore during foss.in/2005 :), seriously in an auto, we both need some transport and Bangalore being Bangalore finding an autorickshaw in the evening is a pain. So we happen to share it, he dropped me somewhere near MG Road, I think. ( Some day, I need to write about the cool people I have met since FOSS.in/2005 and by being involved in FOSS. ). Anyways, we spoke for sometime in the afternoon about his experiences in Germany and all. I went to my room and downloaded Qt 4.3 snapshot and while wget worked seamlessely I rested for a while. Went back to the lecuture complex to attend Shreyas and Tejas talk about groupdav. They had to keep "caliberating" the talk because they audience didn't quite understand what they were speaking. So they started showing howto telnet and do imap, pop3 et al. I sat at the last row with Parthan watching some students enthusiastically copy the commands so that they could send fake/spoof emails and some such ;)</p><p></p><p><p>After the dinner we had another talk by Atul about FOSS and business models. Too many questions from students during the talk. Why are these kids so interested in licensing and licenses intead of code, documentation, bugs and mundane stuff like that. The talk ended past 11 PM, if I remember correctly. After the talk, Shreyas was wondering as well, why are the kids here and elsewhere as well so enthusiastic about licenses and not about the actual thing called contribution in various forms like mentioned before. So I went back to my room after a while Aanjhan and Parthan joined in as well. Parthan woke up till late, preparing for his talk. I went to sleep soon, so did Aanjhan, I believe. I wanted to wake up early as my talk was the first talk of the day on Sunday.</p><p></p><p><p><b>Day Two</b></p><p><p>It was Holi day. For the first time in my life I was away from home on Holi. Woke up early and was ready even. Finally met Kiran aka <a href="http://jace.seacrow.com/">Jace</a> who arrived on early Sunday morning :). Well we sat in one room once at Atul's place but never spoke to each other. Atul, Shreyas, Tejas and Kiruba were supposed to leave in morning. After breakfast and seeing those folks off, I went to Aryabhatta hall for my talk. The keynote talk of the day was cancelled. Went bit early to prepare and be ready with all those projector thingies and what not. Just to save time later. The talk went well or alteast I think so ( more about it later ) . I spent rest of the day loitering around, talking to students, teachers and speakers. Kept watching Jace do paparazzi stuff with his D70. The last talk of the whole event was a "discussion" with Jace as a moderator. Simply awesome dude he is, I must say. He refused to use the mic, sat with crossed legs and we all discussed blogging, communication, exchange of ideas/views, censorship et al. Learnt a lot while that happened. The discussion was cut short because it was getting darker and we wanted to go to the nearby valley to see the sunset. So Amarjeet - the over enthusiastic head of the organising team called in random people from the audience and gave away the momemtos to speakers et al. More snaps were taken and we went to the valley. Parthan had left by then as he had a train to catch. It was loads of fun at the valley. We stayed there till it was more than dark, kept cracking jokes and all of us had loads of laughs. Kushal had completely lost it with all his antics. He couldnot stop taking photos.</p><p></p><p><p>The food was fine all the days, but the best thing was icecream + gulabjamun or icecream + fruits :)</p><p></p><p><p><b>Day Two and half and Three</b></p><p><p>So whole gang except me was going to Bangalore or via Bangalore, so were supposed to take a overnight bus to Bangalore - which I had done last year. We went to Hotel Malabar Palace in the city to eat some nice appams and curries et al. Yummmm.... simply awesome. But Paragon ( where we had gone last year ) is better. After dinner we saw the gang off and the organiser dudes - Thomas, Shrikant, Basil dropped me at the guest house. I had a early morning Indian Airlines flight to Mumbai so they said some one will pick me up at 4:30. I woke and was ready by then. I was about to call them when I heard a slight knock on the door. And awesomeness, those chaps were there. Hats off to them, they were all doing night outs all these days. They dropped me at the airport on time. Check-in was no trouble except for a long line, got a window seat even :). It was only after security, just before boarding started I came to know that the flight was via Goa, a stop over of 40 minutes. Didn't complain much though. Long many many years since I was on Goan soil, although not quite Goa. I have a vague recollection of Hotel Fidalgo where we stayed. I think I was in 4th or 5th grade then, so around 1988-90ish. Oh and the plane incidently landed at the International Airport ??? which is good for me because the pre-paid taxi fare to Panvel is cheaper from the international airport than from domestic airport. One who knows Mumbai/Bombay might agree that this defies logic but its true. I can actually take a "cool cab" to Panvel from international aiport, wouldn't have to pay any toll ( because the pre-paid fair includes that ), pay extra INR 100 to the cab driver and still pay less that what I would have paid otherwise. Not to mention I have saved from serious brain fry that happens generally when the cab driver keeps lamenting about how far Panvel is and he wants extra bucks.</p><p></p><p><p>Executive summary : Another great conference. Great location, Calicut gives me a feel of end-of-the-world-feel. Great poeple. Great Food. This foss meet has grown really big since I was here last year. From 4 speakers/1 day event in 2005 to 40+ speakers / 2.5 days event in 2007. Good work folks. I just hope some of you contribute to FOSS as well. Cheers!</p>