Riya Choudhary, Delhi

It’s a dream of every K-Pop fan to get the opportunity to attend a fan meet and witness your favorite idol face-to-face. Recently this dream and wish of mine got fulfilled when I got the chance to attend MONT’s fan meet in Delhi.

M.O.N.T. (Members Of the National Team) is a K-Pop boy-band consisting of 3 members – Narachan (the leader), Bitsaeon (the main vocalist), and Roda (the rapper and maknae {youngest member}). Interestingly, the three members have been given stage names that are pure Korean words. Narachan means ‘clean and kind person,’ Bitsaeon means ‘the light is bright,’ and Roda, means the ‘awaited genius.’ Their debut date is January 04, 2019 under the Fly Music Entertainment in South Korea. They also visited India in 2018 before their debut. When I received the news that they are coming to Delhi again in September 2019, I got very excited. I booked my tickets a day after the tickets went on board. I was very much excited because I was going to meet MONT and also because I was going to visit KCCI (Korean Cultural Centre India) for the first time.

I went to the venue with my cousin, half an hour before the event started. I saw many fans at the entrance and met some of the people I knew through different events attended. There I met the organizers, Pink Box Events. I showed the tickets and then we got seated in the auditorium of KCCI where the fan meet was going to take place. The volunteers could be seen working hard for the fans as well as for artists. They were helpful and amazing. They helped me to get seated in the safest place. Then the event started and MONT entered the auditorium. We, fans were shouting like crazy for them. Then MONT greeted all the fans and gave us a surprise that they will perform on some songs for us. I was overwhelmed with joy that they actually thought about us and wanted to perform for us.

Firstly they performed on their song ‘Rock Paper Scissors,’ ‘Tired,’ ‘Bestfriend’ along with Bollywood songs ‘Hawayein,’ from Anushka Sharma and Shah Rukh Khan starrer movie, Jab Harry Met Sejal and Bitsaeon sang some lines of ‘Jeena Jeena,’ from Varun Dhawan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui starrer movie, Badlapur by saying “Wait! I know another Hindi song.” That was music to my ears and especially the way they had put an extra effort to learn the Hindi songs and to work upon their pronunciation was so refreshing. After their performances, the fan-meet started and they interacted with fans. One of the fans gave Narachan, Hajmola, because he had once tried Hajmola and loved its taste and by mistake called it as HAJIMOLA. And then we went for hi-touch!

I was ready to go onto the stage with the help of my cousin then suddenly organizers told the artist about me and MONT came off the stage and I got to shake their hands. So, it was really fast but being able to shake their hands and look into their eyes and get a smile from them became a precious memory for me. A lot of memorable things happened to me in those few seconds.

After that, the fan-signing {for poster} started where fans gave gifts to MONT. I went to the stage for the fan-sign along with a volunteer because I wanted to experience it like everyone else. Roda was sitting at the starting, then Bitsaeon and then Narachan. I went to each member one by one. Roda said thank you for coming and I was like “OMG! I’m glad to see you here. Please come again.” After that, I went to Narachan, he also said, “Thank you for coming, you are so sweet.” I replied, “Thanks to you, for coming to Delhi. I’m a big fan of yours.” After that he stood up and hugged me. For a moment, I forgot how to breathe. That was such an awww moment for me and I really can’t explain my emotions. After that, I went to Bitsaeon, he was looking at his marker pen, then suddenly I gave him the poster and said “Bitsaeon, saranghae.” And we exchanged a smile. At that moment, I wanted to scream in excitement, “Bitsaeon take my heart with you!” Like how can a person have such an adorable smile? He is my bias. I got flustered and forgot what I prepared to tell him. After that MONT expressed their feelings and gave goodbye wishes to all fans and then the event was concluded. 

Every time I think of this event, I smile so much. They made me so happy and I get these random flashbacks of those three reactions given to me from the members of MONT, that it never fails to make me giggle and blush. Seeing them from up close was so crazy too because they’re so perfect! They are so cute in real life. All of their smiles at me are embedded in my mind till date.

I extend my thanks to Pink Box Events and Korean Cultural Centre India for giving us such a beautiful memory! Have you ever attended a fan-meet? I would love to hear about your experiences! Share your experience with me in the comment below!