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filed under WordPress
Last week, Faguni, a WordPress contributor from Dhaka, asked if I was writing a post about my experience as an organiser for WordCamp Asia 2026. We were catching up on WordCamp Asia and professional updates. One of my biggest regrets is that Faguni and others couldn’t attend in Mumbai due to visa problems.
This post has been in draft for about three weeks. As a lead of WordCamp Asia, I had a unique perspective. The event ran smoothly, and even a month later, I’m still tagged on various LinkedIn posts about it.
I’ve read hundreds of social media posts sharing their experiences from the event.
I’m unsure how to articulate my takeaways or leadership lessons. Each experience is unique, making much expert advice seem like survivor bias.
But I do like capturing some feelings, thoughts as personal artefacts on this blog.So make a long story short, this is not really a post about leadership and all that jazz around WordCamp Asia. It is more of a personal one!
Day One, Family Photo at WordCamp Asia 2026.
Can you find me? Hint: I am actually smiling!WordCamp Asia in Mumbai!
Last year I visited WordCamp Asia in Manila. Folks from the WordPress community team only weeks before the event had reached out to me and asked about organising WordCamp Asia in India.
My first fears were how people from Pakistan and Bangladesh travel to India, and those fears did materialise. These fears were not unfounded. Finally I do not think anyone from these two countries could manage to get visas to visit the event. It is one of those regrets I have and won’t go away!
But in early 2025, there were no other cities in the fray and the outreach to Mumbai was a bit of a SOS. So I said “YES” and off I was on this wild journey called WordCamp Asia 2026.
One important reason to sign up for this role was I really wanted to see if I could lead and manage something that just had so many moving parts, so many passionate and talented individuals.
Open source work is a bit like getting used to being under the sun. It can sap your energy, can make your feel uncomfortable. But once you are used to life under the sun, a lot of magic will happen.
This edition was happening in Mumbai, the first flagship event ever in India. There was some negativity around it at the beginning. Regardless, the organisers, all 79 of them started the journey off, excited and happy!
The year of organising this event not easy at all. We lost young Zeel Thakker, an organiser from Ahmedabad, we dealt with production delays, with visa issues, operational costs, sponsors pulling out at the last minute, stretching out budgets, and if that was not enough challenge! A freaking war broke out, which reduced participation further, speakers and some sponsors pulling out.
Several times the thought did cross my mind, that this event is jinxed and maybe it just won’t take place.
But it did!
We had one of the highest turnouts (2400+ Attendees) ever at a WordCamp and the largest ever Contributor Day (1600+). I still feel that we could have had a bigger turnout.
One of my main goals I set was to make WordCamp Asia, unapologetically Asian! This meant making editorial and other choices that reflect this. We managed to have the highest number of speakers from Asia, and I think many more in ratio than previous editions. I hope that continues in future versions too.
The energy was high, at least the feedback from attendees was everything from sessions, to the venue to the food to the after party was fantastic.
I am incredibly proud with all of everyone involved in the organising team. Here is a group photo at the Organiser Dinner!
We just looked a bit rowdy here, but we were quite nice actually! Friendships
The one thing that invariably happens at projects like flagship WordCamps, is that you become friends with people from different countries. I now have friends from Uganda to Russia, from Japan to Sri Lanka.
One of them who almost did not make it was Moses (Cursor) Ssebunya. He travelled all the way from Uganda. His visa application for India was rejected twice!
But his positivity, support and friendship is truly infectious. Both of us got on several calls and several more Whatsapp messages, and figured out how to make sure his visa application does not get rejected a third time!
Some extra paperwork, documentation and digitally signed letters later, Moses applied again the third time. I am not the most expressive person but when he got the visa and sent me a text, I punched the air as in victory for about 3 and half times. Then I noticed I was staring at the screen and no one was around. The window was open and some neighbour might have thought I was finally losing it!
Moses and I learned so much about visa applications, I semi-seriously joked that the two of us should become travel consultants! Moses has spent countless hours vetting applications for meetups and WordCamps around the world. People like him are why the community team keeps chugging along!
And here is Moses and I, eating some Dosa in Mumbai
Moses had his first taste of dosa at Mumbai. The dosa was just about okay! But since it was his first one, he seemed to be happy! Another friend I made over the last year was Regan Khadgi from Nepal. It was so good to meet someone who shares the same values and grace about the community.
I had a great time traversing through Colaba and Girgaum in Mumbai in November, with Regan. It was quite interesting to discover Mumbai through a first time visitors eyes.
During WordCamp Asia, he stayed over at my place in Mumbai. It was fun to hang out with him after the event and take him to an extremely crowded Malad station, to eat unhealthy and delicious wada paavs along with jalebis.
I suspect Regan was a bit overwhelmed with just the number of people he saw. I have made him a promise to visit Kathmandu someday and walk through his city with him as my history guide.
The other big influence on me came from Japan! One of the coolest people I know is Junko Nugaka from Japan. She lives on a small island and takes care of a library. I think people who enjoy libraries have an innate sense of internal calm and an appreciation of the commons.
While I have known Junko for several years, I only became friends with her this year. We have spoken often about the project,style of leadership and sometimes even art and culture.
This was in Pune, after the event. Junko struck a pose at the Kelkar Museum. Junko travelled with me to Pune along with her friend Shoko, after the event. I showed her and re-discovered Pune, seeing it through the eyes of a travellor. I think that will be separate post next week.
Mumbai, Pune, Mumbai!
Mumbai
WordCamp Asia is a big deal. We expected a lot of people to visit Mumbai. Mumbai’s WordPress community is one of the oldest in Asia (along with some in Japan). I have known a lot of the WordPress-ers from these two cities and for over a decade now.For the event I got to work with friends from Mumbai starting with Alexander, Meher, Vachan, Saaheel and so many more.
Alex participating was special for me. He has been visiting my house in Mumbai, planning WordCamps in Mumbai, back when both my parents were around. It was pretty cool to hangout with him sometimes and sometimes just being in the moment.
PuneWhen I moved to Pune in 2017, and I made friendships in the city, mostly with people from the WordPress community. Sheeba, Amit, Joel are all folks I have known since forever in Pune. There was also Yogesh, a good friend from Bangalore. Not only were they organisers, I personally felt they were my main support system in a way. Many of them took time out to help me tackle some things often without me needing to ask for help. They were in a way, my main support system.
That I would end up organising this thing with long time friends and collaborators, was something that was something I could imagine happening. I am very thankful and very privileged to have got to do this with them!
What I did not ever imagine happening was to work with my younger sibling Arundhati.
Mumbai
Arundhati knew some of the organisers from Mumbai but she really started to get to know the WordPress community when she attended some of the meetups in 2022.
Arundhati joined the Communications Team for WordCamp Asia last year.
I make websites, she is a therapist. Our paths never really cross professionally. So even though I know her for a good 40 odd years, it was the first time we were working together.
It was really enjoyable and pleasant to see her doing well, holding her own and bringing along her own brand of calmness and creativity to the project. She even designed the official Wappu mascot for WordCamp Asia, called Wapuulika.I am thankful and glad we both were together on this journey!
Arundhati and I – pleased as punch, posing with Kazuko Kaneuchi the creator of Wapuu from Japan. Photo taken by Junko. For me WordPress feels like Mumbai
Mumbai is a city I have lived much of my life. My childhood, my school years were all in this city. My parents have lived and died in this city. The city is changing, sometimes too fast but if I sit still for a moment, I recognise it even now and never feel like a stranger.
I remember a couple of years ago, while writing a letter to a friend, I described Mumbai as a place that feels like a place I could simply never feel lost.
In that sense, over the years WordPress is like Mumbai for me. A place where I never will feel lost, a place I could never really feel like a stranger!
I got to pose at the photo booth.
Photo taken by Junko
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filed under WordPress
A few years ago while adding WordPress.org as an organisation I contribute towards on LinkedIn, I think I wrote a random date (11 January 2015).
I keep forgetting to fix this date. The real date is sometime closer to October, September, or was it November in 2014? These were when contributors still hung out on IRC channels instead of Slack.
But if contributing means organising local meetups in Mumbai, then I started in December 2012.
But LinkedIn shows this date and everyone wishes me on this fake anniversary I made up.
My 11 plus year journey of contributing to WordPress has been mostly focused on the community team. Someone thanked me for being consistent, someone else mentioned that it was loads of effort.
Working and helping people put together events has never felt too heavy. I find it easy to be honest and I enjoy it a lot.
My favourite weekend jam is still organising small local meetups in my neighbourhood in Pune around WordPress.
This year is a big year though, I am leading with my co-leads WordCamp Asia 2026 in Mumbai. It happens on April 9th to 11th. There is full day that is dedicated to contributing to WordPress called Contributors Day!
I highly recommend starting your journey into the WordPress world with WordCamp Asia! Leave a comment below if you need me to convince you more 🙂
So all said and done, I am not going to fix that date on LinkedIn!
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filed under Cities
I am planning on traveling through Bangalore for some work and personal things this month.
If you are around and reading this blog, I would love to catch up. Let’s chat about WordPress, the open web, and communities around open-source. I am happy to catch up with you.
I will be living near MG Road area but happy to take a metro train anywhere!
Just drop a comment or reach out LinkedIn or X/Twitter to sync upTags: Bangalore
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In 2025, I was blogging a lot more. I thought I would share some numbers thanks to this nifty plugin.
I wrote about 7414 words spanning over 23 posts.
My longest post with most number for words (800 +) was this one on my thoughts on AI. The most visited post this year was this one about Kalinka a the Russian folk song and its Hindi cover “Darling” in the movie “7 khoon maaf”
I am quite happy with the regularity with which I am writing these days. I wrote 13 out of the 23 posts in the past 3 months.I also use the word “lot” a lot of times in my writing. About 26 times throughout the year.
Wishing you the best for 2026! Happy New Year!
PS: With this post, I would have published 24 posts for the year. I estimate that I’ve written around 7550 words!
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I remember a teacher in school who would force all us to do some meditation before the class began, telling us to empty our minds. My friends swore about how calm they felt. I usually was imagining all my friends and my teacher removing the top of their heads and pouring out the remnants. “Empty your minds!”she had said. Bless her soul.
But I always felt jealous and still do to some degree of people who can meditate. Find calm, be quiet and think of nothing.
Do you meditate? I try sometimes. Just a few minutes maybe. I can not really meditate, can never really calm down with meditation. I have tried a lot of this, all the apps too. None work at all for me.
A good long walk with my earphones has a much more meditative effect. To remain in a good calm space, I constantly feed my mind with something to think about. I want to write something, learn something, solve something (preferably).
This is why I actually like playing chess with some AI bots for being calm. So yes I guess, Chess.com is my meditation app.
So my advice is to find out whatever makes you calm, makes you feel regulated and then just double down on it.
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filed under TV and Movies
Shōgun is a TV series by FX and it is an adaptation of James Clavell’s novel. I was intrigued by its setting in medievial Japan. But I was putting this off for a while. The historical epic is filtered through western eyes. A white protagonist serves as our guide into Japanese culture from 500 years ago. I did not want to watch another attempt at depicting the “exotic samurai”. They are often reduced to being side characters in a story of their own history.
But the casting of Hiroyuki Sanada as a producer was something that gave me impetus to finally watch it. Maybe I was just running out of things to watch. 🙂
John Blackthorne remains a central character. What I discovered was a story about power and loyalty. It also conveyed the impossibility of truly understanding another culture. This was told with a sophistication that left me full of joy at the unfolding series.
World Building
This is not a documentary. But the series really takes a lot of efforts to get the visual and cultural world it is set in correct. Shōgun has a visual language that is extraordinary.
The houses, the wooden floors of the castles, Osaka, the village houses, parts of Edo (Tokyo) all look lived in. There is a lot of attention to detail for every scene. The ceremony around drinking tea, how the characters are positioned during formal discussion, showing their hierarchy at court.
Space and art design is used to show intimacy, status of the character, and even threat.
Hiroyuki Sanada playsToranaga, a fictional character based on Tokugawa Ieyasu, who was the founder of Tokugawa shogunate. Blackthorne, the English character, ends up in Japan aboard a Dutch ship. The Portuguese have already setup their business in Japan.
Blackthrone is what I was most afraid of. Is everything he sees exotic? Are his thoughts more important than the Japanese characters and their thoughts?
But that is not how it goes thankfully. The show somehow reverses it.
The Japanese characters speak to each other without bothering to explain intricacies to their foreign guest. It constantly reminds us of the limits of our own understanding. Blackthorne, is an outsider, who can learn and appreciate but never fully belong. We as an audience that is non-Japanese are also the same.
The Writing is Beautiful
Shōgun is remarkable for its writing. It is a political thriller, love story, human condition all rolled into one. Nothing in the show is wasted. Objects introduced casually become pivotal. Characters’ offhand remarks reveal themselves, a few episodes later. All are carefully planted seeds.
This is Chekhov’s gun elevated into high art. The show trusts its audience to remember and to connect. The writing rewards attention in a way that feels increasingly rare.
The dialogue, too, operates on this principle of layered meaning. Characters rarely say what they mean directly. The Japanese characters communicate through implication and a shared understanding. This remains partially opaque to both the protagonist and the viewer.
The culture is presented not to be consumed but to be explored.
Best part is it is not second screen enough
There is a new phenomenon about television series these days called Second Screen writing. This means many shows have a screenplay structured with the understanding that people are using a second screen. They do this while watching content. Mainly while watching a tv screen, people are also looking at the mobile phone. They may be chatting or looking at an Instagram reel.
This has led to characters becoming bland, acting and dialogues becoming shorter. Everything seems to be over explained, to allow people to use the second screen without missing too much on the first screen.
The one thing about Shogun I liked is that it does not fall for this phenomenon. It stays true and honest and demands attention from its viewer.
I almost missed watching Shōgun. I’m grateful I didn’t.
In India it streams over Hotstar Jio.
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The founder of Linux operating system, Linus Torvalds was on a YouTube channel Linus Tech Tips. Linus Tech Tips is run by Linus Sebastian.
The video is a 60 min long one, with them building a PC. I do not remember seeing a more relaxed Linus Torvalds in any video.He shares a lot of his thoughts from code, to hardware to workflows and more. It is great to listen to someone whose work has influenced nearly everyone globally. And that is the cool thing about open source.
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It was 2016 and WordCamp Nashik. These were the heady, almost raucous days of the WordPress community forming in India. Apparently some sort of argument had broken out and I had mediated.
Everything was settled, but it took a toll on me. I was not in the best of spaces. So I ended up sitting at the side alone for a bit, while the lunch break was on. I wasn’t in the best personal space. I sat quietly in a corner and watched the world go by.
That is when Harshad walked to me with a cup of ice cream and handed it to me. I tried to say no!
But he insisted that since he was the franchise seller of the brand I had to eat this ice cream. The brand name of the ice cream cup was “Dairy Don.” I asked him casually, “What kind of brand is this?”
He replied in Marathi “GPL friendly, Ice Cream aahey!” (This ice cream is GPL friendly)
He then broke into a guffaw that was restrained and then started laughing aloud at his own joke. It was hard not to join him in laughter. This was quintessentially Harshad.
From left to right — Alexander Gounder, Bigul Malayi, Harshad Mane at WorCamp Nashik 2016 The WordPress community lost a kind soul on November 22nd when he passed away. I’m still processing this loss. I’m trying to find the right words. He was so much more than the roles he played.
Harshad was an early participant in India’s WordPress community. Back then, we were small enough that it felt like everyone knew everyone. He served as the lead organizer for the first two editions of WordCamp Nashik. He helped build something meaningful in those formative years.
Over the years, Harshad and I would talk for hours. Our conversations meandered from WordPress and technology to personal reflections. We also discussed the inequalities that shaped our world. He had this way of engaging deeply with ideas and people alike.
What I’ll remember most about Harshad was his authentic passion for passing the light unto others. He believed deeply in education and digital literacy, but more than that, he believed in opening doors. He pushed to get people from different backgrounds, communities, orientations, and castes onto the stage. They shared how they interfaced with WordPress and tech at large.
During the pandemic, our exchanges became less frequent. The last time we spoke or chatted was almost a year ago. He’d moved away from WordPress somewhat, pursuing passions beyond technology. I’m grateful now for every conversation we had.
Learning that Harshad is no more, leaves a part of me numb. I know several people feel the same way.
Rest well, Harshad.
Maybe someday we will all meet again and eat GPL friendly ice cream!
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filed under WordPress
The other day, someone was explaining to me how some musicians have a hype crew. I googled the term. This is what I found. A “hype crew” is a group of people who generate excitement and energy. They often do this through performance, promotion, or community engagement.
So I guess it is appropriate to call these folks part of the hype crew for WordCamp Asia 2026. Unfortunately, I did not wear the cap in this pic!
Learning new things!
While I know a lot about WordPress, about community building, training, and more, I am new to several things. These include going through several page long contracts and learning about how good production comes through for events.
Understanding how conference spaces manage their spaces is also new to me. All are new training wheels for me. So this ride as one of the leads for WordCamp Asia is a lot of fun!
Last weekend, about 25 organisers visited the venue (Jio World Convention Centre) for WordCamp Asia 2026. I have been to the venue several times before it was finalised and even after it has been finalised. But seeing it through other people’s eyes is always nice.
On a lark, I asked on our WhatsApp group, if we should all wear the Gandhi Topi or Gandhi Caps.
Get involved with WordCamp Asia 2026 – Call for speakers, volunteers and sponsors are still open!
Gandhi Topis (Caps)
So Gandhi caps were mainly popularly worn by Indian freedom fighters. He wore these caps during his early rise in the political landscape of India in the 1920s. This was during the reform movements. These caps were also used by participants of the ensuing civil disobedience movements. It is a cotton based cap, and you will see it quite popularly worn as everyday attire in rural Maharashtra.
Black inmates in South African jails were made to wear caps. Gandhi learned how to sew caps on a sewing machine while in prison in South Africa. This article is a good read on its origins.
I personally joke, that wear this cap and any attire becomes formal!
Finally, here is me wearing the Gandhi Topi with my fellow leads Meher, Vachan and Regan.
Tags: WordCamp Asia
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filed under Liminality
I was down a rabbit hole while on YouTube. I came across this story on about knowing where to put the chalk mark.
So the story goes something like this …
There is a factory where some machinery in the production line has broken down. The owner sends out for a consultant. The consultant looks around and takes out a chalk.
He marks out some machinery and then says “Replace this”. The owner shakes hands with the consultant and replaces the machinery, the factory starts production line comes alive again.
The next day the owner receives an invoice.
Chalk Mark – $10,000/-
The owner is unhappy and angry. He tells the consultant he is not going to pay for 10K for some chalk mark. The consultant calmly agrees and tells him to throw the invoice away and he will send a new one.
The next day the invoice arrives.
Chalk Mark – $1/-
Knowing where to put the chalk mark – $ 9,999/-
Total: $10,000/-
A lot of clients or customers often try to pay you for the time and not outcomes. If that happens, send this blog post to them.
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filed under Chess
I follow chess as a sport. I also play a bit online though not as much these days. The news about the passing of Daniel “Danya” Naroditsky was quite shocking. He was 29 years old. He was a Grand Master and a well known commentator.
He had been a victim of targeted online bullying and trolling over the past year. As a chess follower, it was clear to see the impact on him. This was evident during his streams or interviews.
For me he was mainly the voice of chess in the past few years. He was regularly commentating. I can still hear his excited voice picking on the winning line and calling the World Championship win for Gukesh.
But what I will always remember is the respect and propriety he showed a crying Ivanchuk. Ivanchuk, who is a legend of chess, lost on time, and then he burst out crying. It is agonising to lose on time, especially when the position is winnable or draw. As Ivanchuk cried his heart out, he buried his face into the table. Daniel sat quietly with his head almost bowed. He let the older man cry out.He waited for a while for the usual handshake, but Ivanchuk was lost to the world at that time. So Daniel arranged the piece back on the board and walked gracefully away.
There was much still to learn from this 29 year old!