Dove Play Date with Indiblogger

What happens when Dove asks you out on a date to play?

Last Sunday was a Dove Play date where more than a hundred women bloggers in pretty white were invited to have what I later termed it as – an awesome day!

Venue? – The beautiful JW Marriott Hotel, Juhu, Mumbai

All the bloggers were asked to come dressed up in pretty white and me, like many other bloggers had a tough time finding one. The fact that Indiblogger termed this Dove Bloggers Meet as a Date gave me a happy excited smile. What made me more happy was that I was going to meet the lovely blogger from Indore – Pooja Kopargaonkar from Life Camera Fashion for the first time ever after a friendship of almost a year, online!

My sister and I (who is a travel blogger and blogs here) registered ourselves and got a badge of our names written on top. That was a really sweet move for a date! The next was to give us a team no. & a map. Yes, a map.

And then started a series of selfies and posing at the photo booth. I loved how Dove and Indiblogger put up ipads’ for us to take selfies and tweet from the Dove account!

Later, we could also tweet from our own account :)
How’s the selfie? (I never get them right!)

Dove ipad selfies!

One of the highlight of the date was the Photo booth with amazing props to play with and get ourselves clicked.

I wore a black high-neck top and white skirt, paired with a sling bag & white danglers made of sea shell

They had put a wall of fame where all the pictures went up after printing and yes we could take our copies home as the memory of a soon-to-be perfect date!

Dove - Wall of Fame

And then no guesses to this; I moved in to where I saw were kept cupcakes. Sigh.

Yummy!

I was in Team 8. The date was hosted by the beautiful host – Freishia. She helped us all to get distributed in our respective teams and get a name for ourselves – Team 8 – Fishtail Braid! Oh yes, we had to name our team on the basis of any hairstyle and we chose this. There were other teams like Waves, Bangs, fringe benefits, etc.

Once the briefing was done, Frieshia told us that we should just let go off our bags and get ready to be pampered and enjoy the date!

After a few activities like giving your team mate a compliment and dance like a bird with them – came the ZUMBA! Phew. 10 minutes of this and we were all sweating yet glowing. It was amazing! I have been cribbing and ranting about how much I want to learn Zumba and holla… here you go, my date started on a perfect note :)


Then came more activities and the date officially began. The 12 teams were divided into 4 sets of 3 teams each to make the date a lot easier and comfortable.

Puzzle Mania

Put up the puzzle in the least possible time and your team wins! Since childhood I have loved putting up puzzles together and Dove made me a kid again on the play date. It was a really nice activity. My team came 2ndamong the rest 2. Yay! I love puzzles.

Hulla Lopp - Hips Don't Lie

I had never done this before. I could hardly keep it on my waist for few seconds and phoosh. But, my teammate Nikita did it perfectly and made us win this round! Wohoo :D

Have a Ball!

This activity exhausted me completely! Look for the Dove balls and throw them to your teammate who has to catch it with the help of a container. We managed to get 269 balls *claps*

All the teammates had to hairstyle their friends before the other team does. The least time a team of 10 takes to do this the better their chances of winning. I loved the hairdo my teammate - Sherna gave me! :)

And then we clicked more pictures.

(L-R: With my team, With Freishia - the host, With Priyanka from Purplenist and with Dove Brand Manager)

(L-R: With my team, With Freishia - the host, With Priyanka from Purplenist and with Dove Brand Manager)

The next activity was the Bartending activity by the pool side. We went outside and oh boy, the Juhu beach looked beautiful. Sad, that I don’t have a picture of it. Mixologist, Pranav demonstrated the activity and the one member from each time had to make the perfect drink for the night. The team who won had for themselves amazing Dove Salon vouchers!

This was the last activity other than the Dove Salon Experience which was waiting for us inside. We all decided to have dinner, which was really-really good.

And just when I thought what else; a team of marvelous dancers stepped out for a flash mob and put up a brilliant performances for all us onlookers!

This was followed by the announcement of winning team and the team which won was – Team 2 with all the members winning vouchers worth 5k from Dove Salon; voila!

As we headed to have a salon experience, one last activity was revealed. The Maze. Anyone from among the bloggers had to go in the glass maze and collect the maximum dove bird in a designated time. 2 bloggers were chosen for this activity randomly and incidentally both of them won themselves Dove vouchers because of a tie! Pretty amusing :)

The body needed some relaxation and we headed to the Dove Salon Experience where my beautiful stylist transformed my hair completely. Perfect end to a perfect date. Dove did what it promised – Took care of my hair as I played and got pampered by them the whole day.

Hair Makeover

and then we clicked more pictures...

After the Salon Experience / Before As we decided to step out and head home, Dove pampered us with more… Gifts! :D

What does the gift contain?

1. Dove Intense Repair Shampoo and Conditioner with Keratin Repair Actives

2. Dove Bird Hair Clip

3. Philips Hair Straightener machine

I have used this Dove shampoo and conditioner before and it is a really nice product for those who have damaged frizzy hair. I have those and the product has helped me quite a lot :) It lathers well; makes my hair smooth and clean and has reduced the frizzy hair to much extent.

What stood out for me on the date was the Pampering which never stopped. And it was not just about one or two but every blogger felt the same. We were all taken care of till the very end when cabs were called to get us home as it went on about till 10 pm. As I took out my feet from those heels in the cab and looked through all the pictures in the camera – that’s when I told my sister – I had a perfect date today, with Dove :)

Keeping playing with your hair and Dove will take care of the rest <3

#DovePlay moments and the fabulous team behind the meet; thank you so much Indiblogger :) Were you at the date too? Do tell me in comments how did it play out for you?

Love <3

Megha

After the Salon Experience / Before

As we decided to step out and head home, Dove pampered us with more… Gifts! :D

#DovePlay moments

and the fabulous team behind the meet; thank you so much Indiblogger :)

Were you at the date too? Do tell me in comments how did it play out for you?

Ruma Roka and her journey beyond sounds [Idea Caravan]

When an idea takes hold, nothing can stop it! - Stephen Richards

When it strikes the right chord, there is definitely no going back.

Firstly, thank you Indiblogger and TedEx for making such amazing videos accessible to all of us. Secondly, a big thank you to all the speakers in the videos, who makes me say - Wao! What a work!

There is Ruma Roka who is doing extraordinary by helping the deaf. She feels that learning should never stop. A simple idea to learn sign language and help those in need drives her life, now. Then there is Cynthiya Koenig who empathized with the pain of women who carry water on their heads and cover kilometers everyday. Christian Sarkar with an innovative low-cust housing solution, Neil Harbisson who has designed an “artificial” eye. There is also a research scholar who wants to put an end to a disease which takes our loved ones awa - cancer. Hats off to the great thoughts, the ideas, the courage and the great work!Let's talk about the video which drives me to do something out of my life.
Ruma Roka and her journey beyond sounds... 

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ai3XTLyGboQ

Deaf are not dumb. Watch this video and you'll know why am I saying this. Ruma Roka and Noida Deaf Society are working towards helping people with hearing difficulties and making them as employable as a person with “normal abilities”. A thought of helping out the needy drives her life. I second her point when she says that there are field where the work of differently-abled people is productive and that's where we should strive for them to be.

Big Change can happen with a small thought, a perspective, or just by thinking differently. Ideas are no ones monopoly. They have the power to change tomorrow. Be it about making such differently abled people ready to face life with confidence or making this earth greener, all it takes is an Idea!

Ideas are everywhere. Indiblogger is an idea, TedEx is a Idea, this blog post is an idea... A simple belief in existence of an idea or a thought is enough to change the stride of today. All it needs is that one step from your side; like Ruma took.
Do watch the amazing videos of Idea Caravan here: http://www.ftideacaravan.com/

Franklin Templeton Investments partnered the TEDxGateway Mumbai in December 2012. This post is written for The Idea Caravan contest on Indiblogger

HPInk Advantage Bloggers Meet

My first Indiblogger meet in delhi, or for that matter the first ever Blogging meet in a new city! :) A good friend in tow, definitely a good day!

It was Indiblogger's one of the many interesting Bloggers meet. On 8th June, 2013 when my city Mumbai was splashed with beautiful rains; delhi was hot with scroching heat and definitely hotter with all the Blogging families at The Fortune Global, where the Indiblogger Meet took place!

#HPInkAdvantage where technology binds with creativity to bring masterpieces! The meet was good and it was my first my first '30 seconds of Fame' too! :D 

The meet made me miss my childhood days when we used to sing "Old McDonalds had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!" Indiblogger made us sing this melody and it was lovely! Not to forget my team's animal was a Puppy and yes, we did make sound like a puppy does. :P

With a round of small activities in between where attendees who came with their family got to win HP speakers! The activity where the bloggers had to chose any number between 1 and 11 was actually new to me and I thoroughly enjoyed it too :)

HP has associated with Pogo to push creativity among the children and adults alike with technology as one of the main criteria of the same. The creative lady from Pogo taught all of us as to how to make a pretty gift box from a sheet of paper! You draw frame, cut, paste, add a bow and *swush* you are done! :D I am definitely gonna try it back home!

Moving on, the best part of the afternoon was "The Creative Corner". What happened is, the audience was divided into 4 teams of 15 people each and each team was given a birthday party theme! Yes, a birthday party theme in a bloggers meet. So what the team had to do is; set a birthday party table in 30minutes with the material being provided!

Theme which my team got? > PIRATES!
I was beaming with joy!
Since the day I have watched Pirates of the Caribbean and seen Johnny Depp, I am mad about anything which has to do with Pirates :D

the countdown started and so did we. Our team definitely  had a lot of fun and was all set in the Pirate mood. We made things like Eye Patches, Birthday Thank you card, Invitation card, Loads of Blue balloons, beautiful table and what was the return gift from our team? An HP Printer! Yeah you heard it! ;) Actually one of our team member won that printer the same evening for a twitter contest #HPInkAdvantage. Lucky no? :D

Our Pirate Birthday Table

The Birthday Card I made, like it?

Our Plate :)

Got praises too! :) yay!

Moving on, 30 minutes went down. Table was set. The judges went on to all the tables and adjudged the winners! Our team - The Mickey Advantage (The Pirates) came 2nd! :D wohoo :D All the team members got HP speakers to take away home :) #Yay!

The team which came 1st >>

Mermaid, their theme :)

Speakers we got! :) They are good!! spent the next night, listening to songs, this helped! :P

 I feel technology does play a big role when it comes to nurturing creativity. With loads of tutorials available online and printers like that of HP with lesser print cost and better quality, the joy of making something just gets better! :)

My super cute n talkative friend, Shivani Goyal :)

Thank you Indiblogger for this amazing meet! Look forward to many more :)

Thank You HP!

Love 

Megha <3