Do you pack your bags ?. I sure as hell don't. I just push in an extra jeans, a couple of tees and a toothbrush into a backpack and I'm done. For this particular reason, I maintain a small wardrobe at my grandparent's and at my parent's. Technically I could show up at Cochin with just a toothbrush and have everything I need. Considering how many times I've forgotten a toothbrush while visiting shows how much care I put into packing.
To put things in context, I showed up in Delhi on friday night with my backpack. Unpacking, I realized that gee toto, I don't think we're in kansas anymore. I barely had anything to wear at night, only one change of tee shirt, an ironed full-shirt, two polyester pants and the clothes I was wearing. On the other hand, I did have my toothbrush, charger, USB hdd, a simputer, mp3 player and 4 AAA batteries. I'd have felt naked without those - clothes or no clothes.
The long and short of it is that I showed up on the second day of FreeDel wearing a tucked in white shirt and blue jeans. I'm not that conscious of my clothes, but when everyone around asks Gopal !!.. ironed and tucked in ?. What happened ? - you can't ignore it that easily. Anyway Yahoo came to the rescue with a T-shirt - so I looked even more corporate but at least nobody was saying anything.
On top of all this, my talk was post lunch. I was talking compilers while half the audience just sat there gaping. But I didn't actually go there to just talk - my other hidden agenda was also satisfied. I can now put faces on all those nicks on IRC - OldMonk, BigBeard, shaitaan, viyyer. Cool customers all, especially OldMonk (he doesn't drink now, but he is called OldMonk for a reason). I crashed at BigBeard's place and had discussions about all sorts of stuff. I even got a bunch of them hooked on Coupling.
Another person I met, but didn't really talk to was Anjuta. A quiet woman who barely spoke. But we made fun of Naba with stuff like : What's the name of your next project ? ...
All in all, one weekend I won't forget ... There is nothing dry about ILUG-D, humour notwithstanding !!