Commemorating BNLF

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls

Rabindranath Tagore

All of us know of the above quote. The father of emotions and emoting had written the above long back. An imagination we all wish to be true. But is it? I don’t think so. But this narrative is not a debate on freedom of speech, or intolerance. It is about blogging. It is about BNLF. Yes, true…my blogger friends might just be too astonished at my gesture, as most of them have already written about the phenomenal success of the event. And for those who do not know, “BNLF” was the most disruptive blogging conference initiative taken by Indiblogger on the 30^th of October and 1^st of November 2015. And was held in “The Lalit Hotel” in Mumbai. Bloggers and speakers had come from around the globe to be a part of this grand symposium on blogging.

Now the question is, why I started with Tagore. No…the reason is not connected to the state I belong. But it is definitely a manifestation of my mind, which is a thoroughfare of paramount thoughts, with a filter to keep away conjectures. My mind is like the world, Tagore had imagined, and so are of all the bloggers, authors and creative people who had gathered there. Is it justified? My beginning?

A ROCKING START

Firstly my heartiest “Thank You” to INDIBLOGGER, for giving me the opportunity to be a part of an event like BNLF. “Blog Now, Live Forever” how thoughtful! Believe you me, this conference enlightened me on my abilities. Given to my hectic schedule and chemical engineering profession, it would never have been possible for me, to accumulate the magnitude and quality of information and knowledge that this two-day long conference gave me. Each speaker was unique and had uniqueness to share, imbibing even a bit of which can help me as a blogger or author. The takeaways were many, which I would like to discuss in this post.

1.       Even a very popular blogger might not get recognised in a crowd, so if you are dreaming to get mobbed, it is not easy through this profession – Purba Ray. As it comes to this petite beauty, I would love to add, she is confident, pretty and humorous as expected, but against to what she continuously mentioned of her nervousness to speak in public, I thought she has got immense presence.

PURBA RAY

2.      An inspiration for the possibility of balancing job life along with an author’s creative world – Arnab Ray. His session was extremely inspiring for me as I am currently struggling to balance my chemical engineering with creative writing. His interaction on the second day, was very informative and is helping me to go about publishing of my manuscript.

ARNAB RAY

3.     Good Content creation, content which intrigues a bigger audience and making presence felt through tools like Twitter, Facebook etc is important for a blogger to be recognised. This is a continuous process and may take good time, so be patient- Christopher Trappe and Jeff Bullas. These two gentlemen really educated us on different aspects of content creation and content marketing. I never knew of the power of twitter, it was only after BNLF that I started with my handle seriously. Thanks to both of them.

CHRISTROPHER TRAPPE

JEFF BULLAS

4.      Life is to be lived and not to be taken too seriously, because when you are least serious you get the best in life- Kanan Gill. His session was hilarious, though he did not discuss much about his blog and online career, but his stage presence is commendable. And yes, he was quite an eye candy too.

KANAN GILL

5.     An inspiring success story, which gives you that ray of hope to keep trying – Preeti Shenoy. This lady who is the author of many best-selling novels, was candid and shared her ups and downs uninhibitedly. Besides the technicalities of conventional publishing sphere which I knew from her, her own story was quite an inspiration.

PREETI SHENOY

6.      Jack of all trades and master of all – Bruce Dickinson.  This man is a real inspiration, never knew will get to see him like this. Holy Shit! Bruce Dickinson, lead vocalist of Iron Maiden, Businessman, Pilot,  etc etc etc and a master of all the undertaken tasks, was speaking right in front of my eyes…what more could I ask for.

BRUCE DICKINSON

I had never been to any blogging conference before this and what a great start! Besides meeting the awesome personalities, I already mentioned, the best part was spending some great time with a multitude of great thinkers. I made so many friends and each of them is unique. Someone is a travel addict, someone a fashionista, someone experiments in kitchen and someone lives with verses. Each of them inspire me in ways more than one.

mobile pics

This conference just proved, that as you open the doors of creativity you only grow as a person, fetters can’t bind thoughts, so just live your dreams.

 THANK YOU INDIBLOGGER.

Aritra Chakrabarty Sengupta

The pics are taken from the album shared by Indiblogger, otherwise it is mentioned.