How it started ?

A few days ago, as you may know, I attended MumbaiFOSS. I actually booked tickets for both Mumbai and Pune FOSS events because the reason behind booking both was that whatever I learned from MumbaiFOSS, I could apply in PuneFOSS. I didn’t want to just be an attendee at events. It felt weird to just go and listen, attend and get a couple of swags. I was already familiar with public speaking, as I had given introductory talks on Brain Chips in my class and in competitions. So, I had no reason to give a second thought to speaking at PuneFOSS. I asked some friends of mine and finalized my topic and wrote a CFP for PuneFOSS. I chose “Introduction to Minimalistic Distributions and Packaging with Arch Linux”. An advanced or super user might say they don’t relate much, but I wanted to speak about these topics for a very long time, and in my talk, I was going to try to create a connection.

So, finally the day came I got a call from “abcd efgh” on trucaller, ofcourse, I ignored the call for a days thinking it of as a spammer or smth like that. But the next day my parents took up the call, And luckily it was faizan, the organizer. He called me regarding the CFP. So, he asked me my journey and what i’m going to talk and how will I prepare for it. After having a nice long talk for half a hour. He said “Ok, we approve you as a speaker, just reply to the approval email in some time”. So, I followed it. I was totally fired up by the time. From that day, I started preparing my PPT and ofcourse started reading every possible page on the archwiki. Soon, the days passed as flowing water of the river. My talk posts were released and the schedule too.

I had my friend Ash who was experienced with giving talks from the age of 15. So, he has been of a great help to a dumb boi like me lmao. He spotted mistakes in ppt’s and made useful suggestions which I could’nt deny applying.

Leaving for Pune!!

So, I’m from Solapur, takes ssome 5-6 hours to reach pune. So, 2 days before the talk I was actually preparing too much I guess. I sat for some 5-6 hours continously on my chair and more before that. So, I felt like let’s get up and do some pushups. Ok, I did 10, then 15 and after that I got a **cramp in my back **😂😂.Not gonna lie, it was too painful to handle, but I wasn’t thinking much about it. So, the next day on Thursday, we 3 friends went to do some shopping (I was still feeling the pain).So, after coming home I did some checkin’s for FAQ’s and stuff like that. So, then my mother did some home remedies and for god sake my back was totally relieved. So, I packed my clothes, got my potato pc and all the other things in my bag packed. Me and my friends were to leave by 6:30 in the morning by train. So, we reached pune had some breakfast, and went into a room hunt. Unfortunately, we got none near the venue. So, we had to stay 6km away from the venue. That day we enjoyed as hell. We went to FC Road and Lakshmi Market, to just roam around on streets and have street foods. Coffee’s were the best parts for me

D’day of PuneFOSS.

Slept at 3 am on Saturday. and woke up at 6:17 am. I got ready, packed my bag and we checked out of the hotel. Leaving for Cummins Engineering College. The organizers were already there, and they allowed me to get in prior for setting up xrandr, So it won’t cause any issues later (lol).

My Talk was supposed to be the 2nd one after Vishal Arya. But, I guess he was late due to some circumstances. Hence, Faizan the organizer announced my talk. So, I got up took my potato pc in my hand, went on to the stage, opened the ppt and greeted everyone. I wasn’t scared so much I was in chill and I already decided, “What I’m gonna speak is what I’m going to enjoy”. So, I wasn’t tensed at all because, I was just going to have fun right? The real fun started when I was talking about contriibution guidelines and I suddenly saw “system going down” due to low battery, because I forgot to plugin the charger, Gotta say mahn that was the real panic moment. My talk started, and I had to hurry up a bit at the Packaging part. So, heartful apologies to all the listeners. As it was my first talk, 25 minutes flushed out like 25 seconds. I might have messed up at moments, but I tried my level best. And, I was done with the talk.

Later, in the QNA. I was very happy because Vishal Arya, one of the guys whom I admired the most, wanted to ask a question. And I answered him. I was very glad that he appreciated my talk before he got started with his. it’s a very small thing, but yeah for me it all mattered. And then came top notch talks by my fellow speakers. The enterprenueral talk was just fabulous, fun, and totally perfect. Talks I enjoyed the most were by Leon Nunes, Harsh Mishra, Shloka Shah, Sangeeta Gupta, Khalid Khan . And all the other talks were awesome too.

What Have I Learn’t ?

I am not a professional or a good programmer at all. I am just an enthusiast, curious guy, or you can say “Jack of everything, Master of none”. One thing, I might specify is I learn’t how to learn. And never sitting quite or just waiting for the moment. I might say, I’ve met very fabulous people. And would never forget them and also never forget 1 April, 2023 ever in my life.

VOF

I’ve learn’t a lot from all those. Everyone was very polite and humble towards each other. I didn’t feel like they were considering with Kacha Nimbu (LMFAO). I was getting equally treated. Well, that’s what a FOSS event is. Everyone comes just to learn.

Thanks to faizan and the volunteer team for organizing PuneFOSS. And making the day special for everyone at the Event.