Day Three - GNOME Asia 2024
On 08th Dec 2024, the opt-in GNOME Asia 2024 social event took attendees to landmarks like Vidhana Soudha, Nrityagram and Our Native Village with folks involved in activities like cricket, snooker and collection before the trip was called off early due to increasing fatigue and worsening traffic.
The third day of GNOME Asia 2024 i.e. 08th Dec 2024 did not have workshops and presentations scheduled as the time was designated for a day trip around Bengaluru. This was an opt-in event for a selected group of folks and the interested folks were requested for around 25 USD upfront fee towards the GNOME Foundation for registration purposes. As the local organizers of the GNOME Asia 2024 event, we made it a point to close the registration before the event's commencement to ensure ample time to arrange for transportation and make the bookings at the visiting spots. Sadly we did not have folks from the GNOME community participating in the social trip on the third day of GNOME Asia 2024 so we decided to proceed with the registrations we had. My day started at around 0600am Indian Standard Time and with me being done with the breakfast by 0715am Indian Standard Time, I was ready to leave for the rendezvous point.
It took a while for folks like Amita Sharma, Samyak Jain, Nikita Tripathi, Smera Goel and Sumantro Mukherjee to join the breakfast table. Yet again, it was me, Sumantro, Justin W. Flory and Amita who were either done with the breakfast or decided to skip it entirely who hopped on the first Uber cab to the rendezvous point while the remaining folks followed right after. The location from where the bus was supposed to pick us up from supposed to be the Carina building's checkpoint inside of the Bagmane Constellation business park. We were soon joined by the likes of Soumadeep Dhar, Dinesh Bhattarai, Marc Pervaz Boocha, Joseph P. Joseph, Ashwini Kumar, Sudhir Dharanendraiah and Jens Petersen. With a headcount of the attendees done on the bus, we departed for our first stop Nrityagram at around 0800am Indian Standard Time. Sudhir gave us a brief history of the origins of Bengaluru and some famous historical places on the way.
We took a stop at the Vidhana Soudha monument in Bengaluru and while did not enter the premises, we settled for a bunch of photography done on the outside of the prestigious place. Sumantro and I had a bunch of interesting discussions around Raspberry Pis, the significance of LPDDR memories, training large language models locally and a lot more things. On the way, I also had a conversation with Justin about potentially owning the event retrospective activity if he had a bunch on his plate and the fact that I perceived a thirty-minute slot for a retrospective activity to be inadequate. I also had some time to catch up with Sudhir on conversations who was sitting right beside us with Ashwini. I was so engrossed in the conversations that I did not realize just when we found ourselves in Nrityagram and with another headcount done for the attendees on board, we headed into the campus where we were given a brief tour of the location.
The place had a certain beauty to it with just how quiet and peaceful it was - and the guide implored us to help maintain the same by asking us to not disturb the ongoing classical dance classes going on in the premises and refrain from clicking photographs or recording the performances. We took stops now and then while exploring the Nrityagram campus whenever we came across a certain classical dance training session in progress and there was a certain magical aspect to the rhythm and grace involved in every practised move. While exploring the place, Jens, Sumantro, Soumadeep, Dinesh and I came across a bunch of Touch Me Not plants (or Mimosa pudica plants) that we played around with for some time. We soon found ourselves returning to where we started exploring the place by around 1130am Indian Standard Time where Justin and I decided to purchase some gifts for our friend, Vipul Siddharth, whom he was visiting after finishing up here.
Some glimpses from the peaceful serenity of Nrityagram and the structures that have stood the test of time and pollution through the years (Courtesy. Akashdeep Dhar and Soumadeep Dhar CC-BY-SA 2.0)
Soumadeep and Sumantro also purchased some more gifts from the Nrityagram gift store and after clicking some commemorative photographs with the entire group, we decided to head back to the bus and leave for the next stop called Our Native Village. We made it a point that Smera got to sit at the front of the bus to ensure that she was in a better situation to handle the motion sickness and honestly, that was a good call to make then as the road to Our Native Village was a bumpy one. We soon reached the location by around 1230pm Indian Standard Time and once we were done placing the orders for the food, we decided to spend some time playing Cricket and Snooker while the food was prepared. It was indeed a lot of fun playing Cricket after almost a decade of playing it in school but we decided not to play any longer than forty-five minutes as the afternoon heat could have made things a lot worse for folks exerting themselves on the playground.
There is always this pathological need for taking multiple photographs in a place where things look very instagrammable or photogenic (Courtesy. Akashdeep Dhar and Soumadeep Dhar CC-BY-SA 2.0)
Ashwini, Sumantro, Sudhir, Soumadeep, Jens and I took turns with bowling, fielding and batting - and we tried not to hit the ball far to tire out the fielders. Justin also got a taste of Cricket and with him drawing parallels to Baseball, you could guess with your eyes closed just how easy it was for us to dismiss him from the pitch! Some of the folks headed back a bit sooner to try their hands on the Snooker table that was present beside the dining area. We were soon informed about the food being ready by around 0200pm Indian Standard Time and with distinctions made between the folks sticking to the vegetarian dishes and non-vegetarian dishes we dug into. We finished off our lunch by 0300pm Indian Standard Time with some butterscotch-flavoured icecream and headed back to the bus for a quick headcount. Sudhir directed the driver to set the course for Bengaluru Palace while a bunch of us drifted off to sleep after a fulfilling lunch.
As the bus was rocking a bit hard, it was difficult for me to doze off even when I felt very sleep-deprived - I decided to listen to some music and have a conversation with Soumadeep who was now sitting beside me. Halfway to the Bengaluru Palace, Smera, Sudhir, Soumadeep and I had a quick discussion about whether we would want to head there as it was already 0430pm Indian Standard Time and almost everyone on the bus was asleep after all the craziness that took place in the couple of days before. The traffic condition was also worsening by the passing minute and it would have taken us a long time to get there if we kept on moving. We decided to have a redirection back to the Carina building's checkpoint inside the Bagmane Constellation business park. After dropping off Soumadeep near Yelahanka and Marc Pervaz Boocha near Krishna Raja Puram metro station, we soon found ourselves at the rendezvous point by around 0500pm Indian Standard Time.
With our final goodbyes (for a while) to the attendees, speakers and organizers who made it this far into the GNOME Asia 2024 event, the Fedora Project crew booked a couple of cabs and headed back to the Fairfield by Marriott hotel. The evening mostly went quietly with me catching up on my rest, with my body finally getting used to the bed at the hotel and me ordering in some food from Taco Bell on the Zomato app before calling it a day at around 1100pm Indian Standard Time.