It's been exactly 7 months since I've been working on Debian packaging and I often used to complain about not being able to attend any events because I actually couldn't as there was always some obstacle or the other.
My plan to attend MiniDebConf Navi Mumbai 2025 was no easy feat, it was riddled with a lot of obstacles that I painfully had to navigate through.

I firstly didn't know if I'd ever make it to the conference. As soon as I heard that MDC Mumbai got postponed from Nov to Dec, I thought I could attend it as my exams would be done by then so I submitted my talk for the conference.

Not even a week later, all of the colleges in the state including mine decided to go on a strike to demand fee reimbursement dues from the government which meant my exams would be delayed dangerously close to the conference. I was then unsure if I would be able to make it there and was thinking of dropping out and withdrawing my talk.

and luckily the exams did get postponed but they were ending on Dec 10th (conf was on 13th) so I decided to book my plane tickets.

Oh and just then I ended up with one of the worst leg sprains of my life as I jumped off my bed to get something from top of my locker a month ago. The wound was so bad that it filled up my knee joint with fluid which made the entire leg swollen and I couldn't walk for 3 weeks. I was again unsure if I'd make it to Mumbai.

Luckily with enough rest I was able to recover a bit quickly and could finally walk.

But that doesn't end there. Soon on Dec 4th, there was this Indigo crisis in India where there were mass cancellations of planes (over 2000 planes got cancelled) and I was again unsure if I'll really be making it there with all these obstacles. This situation happened dangerously close to the event and I had to book a 1AC train which ended up in RLWL1 which never got confirmed so I had to cancel that and my plane and booked a 2AC Tatkal train to Kalyan Jn.

Finally on Dec 11, I left my hometown for Mumbai on that train after all that pain and suffering. That train journey turned out to be one of the wildest experiences of my life as I saw a lot of weird and creepy people discussing about wild stuff on the train and talks about the train staff being drunk and throwing people off the train if you have a fight with them but somehow I was still alive and made it to Kalyan Jn and took a Uber to Navi Mumbai.

I had no sleep that night as I couldn't sleep on the train and the hotel didn't have any vacant rooms at 5am so I had to wait until 10:30am to get a room. I slept for 8-9 hours during that day in the afternoon.

And the next day was the conference and also time for my talk. I prepped the slides a month ago but as things go with me, my performance and my ability to talk entirely depends on how much of restful sleep I have the previous night and it turns out that I had none of that the previous night so I was extremely groggy at the venue. I went to the venue which was a hotel and met Arya, the kid from FOSSMumbai. Me and Arya did some last minute arrangements at the venue. People only started coming at like 10:15am. Definitely less people showed up than the number of registrations we had which was something that Praveen predicted too.


The talks started and eventually my turn came and let's say mine flopped a bit too much as I could barely get words out of my mouth with all of that exhausted sleep (lose my ability to speak if I don't have good sleep). I ended up speaking 6-7 different accents and dialects of English during my talk due to all that exhaustion. I was certain it didn't go well but it didn't seem like people cared all that much so didn't mind.

Then we had a few more talks and a lot of laughs with weepingclown always being the active energetic person he is. Him and contrapunctus seemed to have a good chemistry and both of them cracked a lot of jokes and it eventually turned out to be evening and we all headed out for dinner. We went to this some kind of authentic Marathi restaurant. Me being someone from the Deccan, I had to order a Hyderabadi Chicken Biryani as it's the rule of the land in Hyderabad to order a biryani when you go to a restaurant. What I was served instead was, you could say Palak Chicken and Turmeric Rice rather than a Hyderabadi Biryani. It was an insult to call it biryani.

I couldn't bear that insult and decided to find some actual Hyderabadi Biryani (We judge a city based on the biryani it serves) and eventually found some real Hyderabadi Biryani just beside my hotel, loved it and ate all of my lunch and dinner there.


Day 2 of the conference was a bit boring you could say as only a few people showed up but the laughs and the fun we had after the workshop made up for it. Then I was on my way back to my hotel and took some more rest as I wanted to roam South Bombay the next day. I pretty much knew it was going to be a solo trip but my parents were insisting on me finding somebody else to tag along but it didn't work out as expected.


It was finally Dec 15 and the day of my day trip. I quickly had my breakfast, got on the Uber and headed to Gateway of India and made it there at 9:30am. I took a few pictures of that area and realised it was still 10:00am and still had a lot of time to kill so I decided to sit at a nearby Starbucks and kill some time reading some book. I ordered a hot chocolate but it arrived an hour late but the waitress there was friendly and charming so didn't mind about the wait.




Left for Mumbai Museum (sorry Mumbaikars, I couldn't spell that name) and it was an ordinary museum, not that great I guess and then I walked around South Bombay all the way to Horniman Circle and then to a restaurant near Churchgate and had some Meditterranean Chicken and went to Paradox Museum which again wasn't that great for its entry price.



Then I went to Marine Drive in that scorching sun but didn't really find much to do so went back to Hotel.

Then it was my last day in Mumbai (16th Dec) and I asked Arya if we could meet again before I leave as Powai was very close to the airport. Me, contra, Arya, Kiran, niya and praveen met at this cafe called Bombay to Barcelona which had a unique vibe that I never felt at any cafe in my life. Loved that place.


That was my last stop in Mumbai before heading back to Hyderabad. The plane took off and I landed in Hyderabad only to wait for 30 minutes to get my baggage as the baggage system ran Windows which had a Blue Screen of Death.



I slept that night at Hyderabad and took a Vande Bharat back to home, and about that train ride, I woke up a bit too late and immediately rushed to Secunderabad Railway Station as I was very close to missing my train, I ran all the way across the station to catch my train that was about to leave and I finally made it home.

Overall, this was my first solo trip and I must visit Mumbai again soon, didn't feel satisfied yet, felt like I missed a lot of stuff.

Also, I also became a Debian Maintainer 3 days ago thanks to bhe for signing my key and my sponsor byang for advocating me.