Rally Memories - part 1 : WHO MET WHO ? HOW DID YOU FEEL

[yabadaba]

man after reading all these stories I am completely bummed out that I couldn't make it. Kudos to all of you who were there and thanks.

[gdhiren]

Originally Posted by beenwaiting

The three days were packed with drama - Like any good drama, this too had it's moments of tension, action, and humor....the funniest one was:

Right before the rally when Aman was EXTREMELY busy, he actually had 30 seconds for each reporter. Our sweet little Jane walks up to him and asks "Aman where are my clothes?"
Aman had the funniest expression on his face

Here is the background : All of us had stayed in the same hotel and at the check out time we had kept out luggage in the baggage room. Aman had the tags of Jane's bags and Jane thought that Aman would get her luggage @ the rally!

Guys u had to be there - It was hilarious


Meenal

hahaha, I remmeber on Monday night while getting out of Situation room, Aman figured that two of his bags were missing and he was trying to figure out where they are. He only had his laptop bag with him. When I drove in to pick up 3 guys at the hotel, the guy who was with Aman (I forgot his name) thought I am picking up Aman and started putting Aman's laptop bag in trunk of my car. Aman saw it at the right moment and took that bag out of trunk and probably thought no wonder why his two other bags were missing.

I think he eventually found those bags, people taking care of thos ebags took them for ride and dinner.

beenwaiting, by the way they had to cut your (and mine too) interview on AajTak. They had to choose between our interview and LogicLife's speech, it was an easy choice for me as logiclife's speech was more important. I'll post the clip as soon as I have it. You should be on one of the other channel interviews, thanks a lot for being available for that.

[chanduv23]

Originally Posted by yabadaba

man after reading all these stories I am completely bummed out that I couldn't make it. Kudos to all of you who were there and thanks.

I thought u were coming to the rally

[KanME]

It was a pleasure meeting and talking to you NeedHelp (dont want to use your real name here)..you are the sweetest ,warm kind hearted soul..The highlight for me was putting a face to all the names I had been in touch with on a daily basis..and ofcourse meeting my hero ..Aman ..

I missed all the fun , I was running between work and kids..but still will cherish the memories from this grand event..

Thanks to dh who let me do this and took care of the kids so well...they enjoyed the experience.

If I have to think of a funny experience , well not so funny I had my first red bull on the rally day thinking it will give me wings ... not fun..
After my meeting with the Representative's aide I asked him the directions to exit the building ,he asked me where do you want t go , I said I just want to get out and he and the staff laughed said thats what we feel on most days too..

Originally Posted by beenwaiting

Keep the Aroras seperate , that is, Puneet Arora and Sumita Arora....these guys would not miss a single chance to beat each other up.

Here is a scene I was in:

Paskal(Puneet) is driving - Sumita is sitting on the passenger seat - we have no idea where we are going. It is 2:00a.m and we are REALLY hungry and tired...

Sumita "I will give you directions from my Tom - Tom " I think she meant GPS.

Puneet (after taking several wrong turns) "It is not a Tom - Tom"?

Sumita- " whateverer it is , it gives me directions and I talk to it" (She was spending 4 hrs. driving each day with this TomTom ).

Puneet - "ok, let's follow our friends".

Sumita dials.

Vandana(in the other car) - "Yeah you can follow us".

Puneet - "well where are you guys"

Vandana - "We are trying to figure out, I don't know how we got here - Let me consult my GPS"

This is what happens when you are sleep deprived, food deprived - all the gadgets in the world cannot help you.

Jane( a chinese) - "why do you guys have to eat anyway, it is time to sleep???"

[gdhiren]

Originally Posted by needhelp!

sw33t, texanmom, thescadman, nagaraj, mundru, macaca, paskal, pdakwala, ashish, pappu, drona, franklin, paskal, janils, ARC
Kanika, Meenal, Sumita, Vandana, Vijay, Akhil, Ashish, Sapna, Preeti, Atmaja, Sonali, Sujata, Dhiren, Sejal, Prasad, Arun, Venky, Gopal, Jane, Kaushal oh my GOD I am surely forgetting a ton of others (and I can't match them with thier IV handles).. California's huge contingent was so great!!
abhijitp, chanduv, Aman and logiclife, well they have already been household figures around my place, and it was great to see them in action.

Please PM me and remind me if I met you, I really really WANT to remember. Overwhelmed by the warmth and cameraderie of the whole group.

Jaime, Libra, 485_se_dukhi, digital2k are there any pictures where I can spot you?

Thanks needhelp!. it was nice meeting you too. After walking 2 miles on her 22nd week of pregnancy my wife was still fresh after seeing all the enrgetic people around (especially you and your daughter).

Here is one incident, your daughter (obviously her IV handle has to be neednohelp! or IGotIt) was carrying one big placard, heavy for her and bigger than her size, and trying to put it with all other placards after we finished at capitol hill. When I, Bhavesh and vnky asked her if we can help, she said thanks, I got it. Then my wife said no wonder she is needhelp!'s daughter.

[gdhiren]

Originally Posted by abhijitp

There are just too many fond memories to share in one post... but I do want to specially thank leo2606 who drove 70 miles to pick up myself, venkygct, vsraja and punjabi at the Dulles airport and then took us out for breakfast, then to the rally venue, then for lunch, finally to a hotel room we had booked for a quick shower, basically... like a shadow he was with us wherever we wanted to go! And... whenever we thanked him (and gdhiren who co-ordinated pickups/dropoffs for many others like the 4 of us) these guys, instead of saying something like "You are welcome", would profusely thank us for flying in!

Its people... like leo2606 and gdhiren.. and many others are the true strength of IV!

abhijitp, You deserve to be the MAN OF THE RALLY (I don't like to argue with ladies so I am choosing MAN ) Whaever crowd we had at the rally the credit goes to you for the Partner thread which really helped increase the attendance and eventually out of area crowd beat the locals. Not to mention the great permonance on guitar on my favourite music.

[chanduv23]

Dhiren - your baby is a hero before he/she is born - Kudos to your wife for doing the 2 mile walk - I know how it feels to walk with a baby - we are also in the same boat

I had been talking to Sivakanth and he told me how yourself, Arun and all your DC gang worked tirelessly

YOU GUYS were EXCELLENT and WONDERFUL

All this shows how much has gone into this rally and planning. This will give a sense of what it takes to achieve something that is phenomenal in nature.

Yes, we can achieve GROUND BREAKING results with folks like you

[gdhiren]

Originally Posted by chanduv23

Dhiren - your baby is a hero before he/she is born - Kudos to your wife for doing the 2 mile walk - I know how it feels to walk with a baby - we are also in the same boat

I had been talking to Sivakanth and he told me how yourself, Arun and all your DC gang worked tirelessly

YOU GUYS were EXCELLENT and WONDERFUL

All this shows how much has gone into this rally and planning. This will give a sense of what it takes to achieve something that is phenomenal in nature.

Yes, we can achieve GROUND BREAKING results with folks like you

Thanks. I missed you. I think I should have seen you but can't remember. Since morning at least 10 people who i have talked to from Tri-State area asked me if I know where is chanduv23? they just wanted to see the great motivator like you. Please point me to the picture where I can find you. Your posts on the IV forum have been an inspiration for lot of folks. It takes people like you to form a group of wonderful hardworking folks.

[chanduv23]

Originally Posted by gdhiren

Thanks. I missed you. I think I should have seen you but can't remember. Since morning at least 10 people who i have talked to from Tri-State area asked me if I know where is chanduv23? they just wanted to see the great motivator like you. Please point me to the picture where I can find you. Your posts on the IV forum have been an inspiration for lot of folks. It takes people like you to form a group of wonderful hardworking folks.

Oh Dude, I am in a lot of pics - I will point u to one hang on - actually if u look at Sheela Murthy's website, I am behind her when she was giving her speech and I was also behind Aman Kapoor holding the flag when he was giving his pre rally speech - So it is easy to figure out

[pdakwala]

Three unbelivable things had happen in DC.

1. Aman forgot his cell phone in the Cab. This phone had all the important contact information. One passenger using the cab found it and he decided to return it to the owner of the cell phone. The passenger did not want to give his cell phone to the cab driver since there is no guarantee that the cab driver will return the cell phone to Aman. He therefore decided to find the passenger (Aman). The passenger asked the cab driver who was sitting in this cab before he took this cab. Where did he dropped the passenger (Aman).

The driver brought that passenger at the Washington Monument. The passenger asked the driver to find Aman. The driver found Aman and the cell phone was returned.

2. I forgot to get my laptop from the cab. The cab left after dropping me, Kushal and Ashish at the hotel. The only thing we knew was the color of the cab. The laptop carrying case had important IV documents, checks that some members had contributed and my personnel check book. Ashish and Kushal were helping me to find the cab company waiting outside the hotel on the road. We spent approximately 2 hour waiting on the road. Kushal kept calling each cab company informing that we have forgot to collect the laptop from the hotel. Ashish kept collecting the phone numbers of the different cab company.

Not only that Meenal who was attending different meetings in capitol hill kept asking different cabs about the ways to find the cab and laptop when she get some time between the meetings. At 6:30 PM Aman, Tamsen, Nili, Meenal, kushal, Rajesh, and I met at Bombay palace for the dinner since we all were very hungry. Aman told me that we will dedicate the whole day Wed. to find the laptop and he was very confident that we will find the laptop. Tamsen was trying to find the cab company on the internet using color combination. I can see that everyone was concerned and were wishing that I get my lost laptop back some way.

At exactly 8:36 PM I got a call from one passenger who was living in VA and told me that he had my laptop. He along with his wife came all the way back to DC capitol (45 MINUTES DRIVE) just to return my laptop.

3. Whoever have came to DC for this rally had met real IV members. I have not seen or met any individual who said that he or she made a mistake coming to DC for this rally. This was an unbelivable event. People who did not came to DC for sure made a mistake of deciding not to come to DC for any reason.

Cheers

[gdhiren]

Originally Posted by chanduv23

Oh Dude, I am in a lot of pics - I will point u to one hang on - actually if u look at Sheela Murthy's website, I am behind her when she was giving her speech and I was also behind Aman Kapoor holding the flag when he was giving his pre rally speech - So it is easy to figure out

Cool. nice to see the pics. Now I know who I am talking to.

[BharatPremi]

Wow!!! I wish I could have attended this mesmarizing rally experience. Now can you guys come up with more data on who (Rally member) met who (Law makers / Media Persons ) and how those meetings were and what opinions you heard at least verbally. What we could successfully conveyed particularly to law makers etc...

[Meenal]

It was great to meet your wife and I admire her will power - It is not an easy thing to do a 2 mile walk on a sunny/hot day when you are pregnant!!

It was a great pleasure to meet you. The only reason I still have my bags is -You. You are really organized!

Meenal

Originally Posted by gdhiren

Thanks. I missed you. I think I should have seen you but can't remember. Since morning at least 10 people who i have talked to from Tri-State area asked me if I know where is chanduv23? they just wanted to see the great motivator like you. Please point me to the picture where I can find you. Your posts on the IV forum have been an inspiration for lot of folks. It takes people like you to form a group of wonderful hardworking folks.

[chanduv23]

Originally Posted by gdhiren

Thanks. I missed you. I think I should have seen you but can't remember. Since morning at least 10 people who i have talked to from Tri-State area asked me if I know where is chanduv23? they just wanted to see the great motivator like you. Please point me to the picture where I can find you. Your posts on the IV forum have been an inspiration for lot of folks. It takes people like you to form a group of wonderful hardworking folks.

They probably wanted to beat me up

[chanduv23]

Originally Posted by gdhiren

Cool. nice to see the pics. Now I know who I am talking to.

Yeah - I did talk to u