Anant's blog: Long weekend, friends and Goafest

Had a long and relaxed few days, starting off with a Friday morning flight to Chennai to see my sister. Since I was there just for the one night, tried to maximize Friday night and called up a few friends. Absolute Radio’s Shirty and Syzygy London's Meera Sharath Chandra were, by happy coincidence, in Chennai as well. So they dropped in, as did Malini Venu, fighter that she is. To those who know her, she’s looking like a million dollars and ready to take on the world. Good to see her and her long-standing partner Chetan, who those who know Malini will know as well.

Back on Saturday night to Mumbai and on to Pune the next morning to catch up with my son. Did the usual Pune rounds and ended up at Blue Diamond for lunch. Bumped into the ever affable Hormusji Cama who was tucking into the dessert at the buffet.

Back in Mumbai on Sunday night, recharged and refreshed.

Woke up Monday morning determined to earn my living and get hold of all the winners of both Abby’s. Cajole, beg, bludgeon or coerce the jury members into giving me the names of winners, that was the target. Gave up all thought of it by the time I reached office – it sounded like too much hard work. Easier to read the names of winners on my flight to Goa tomorrow in the ET.

Caught up with Contagious' Neeraj Nayar for a beer at the Irish Pub at the ITC. Neeraj had just finished overseeing the details for the two awards nights at Goa. Talked about Goafest and Goafest over fresh and crisp Kingfisher draught. Pleasant surprise in the form of Prasoon Joshi and Govind Pandey walking in and the table became larger. More on Goafest.

Took a smoke break, where we bumped into Bloomberg UTV's Deepak Lamba and Viacom18's Abhinav Chopra. Lamba has twice cancelled a scheduled lunch with me, but considering the fact that his company is being very generous in supporting Goafest, all is forgiven. Spoke some more about Goafest.

Finish the issue this evening (Raj Nayak and AIDEM on the cover; always good to see a friend on the cover) and get ready for whatever awaits us at Goafest.

As I’ve said before, I’m looking forward to George Michaelides' session.