The Spell of Bundi, Rajasthan : Reaching Bundi

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Hence, our first stop was at at ‘Salim Paper’ at Sanganer. From what we had learnt, this would be a cottage industry like place where one could see paper making and block printing. So we reached after going circles in the village, and ultimately realising that the place was right at the beginning. If you tell them that you are from ‘Arya Niwas’, they take you through a guided tour of ‘Paper Making’. This was our first visit to a ‘Paper Making’ factory and it was an extremely educative experience. The place was large, expansive and had sections where different jobs took place. The lady took us through the entire process with a lot of patience. The first step is to make the pulp by mashing waste cloth-cuttings that they procure from all the factories around. So essentially the raw material was waste organics being recycled and that was heartening to know. The cloth is shredded to very tiny pieces that are kept submerged in water for a few days. After that the whole cloth-water solution is rolled over and over again to form a thick pulp. This pulp is then further rolled to form a smoother paste. Color and condiments like rose/marigold petals, leaves are added now. Then the paste is spread on metal sheets and left to dry in the sun. Each sheet individually! Hence the paper is born. The dried paper sheet is taken off the metal based and pressed through machines. And thereafter, different actions are taken to make use of this paper. So we saw techniques of cutting, printing, pasting and finishing.

To give the viewers an experience to take home, and of course as a model for this tour fee, they also have a small shop/display counter. The only way we could have reciprocated the gesture was to buy some stuff so we bought quite a lot. Most of that was exciting and relatable as we were purchasing exactly what we saw being made right then. All of it was for European and American markets and were indeed of supreme quality. So we made a good collection of fancy paper bags, craft kits, various kinds of papers etc. that my daughter is waiting to rob off her mother for her school projects.

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Ghumakkar Featured Author Interview with the super talented Shubham Sarcar

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Thereafter Shubham grew from one grade to the next and continued his engagement with Ghumakkar. His first story came in June 2007, which is more than five years from now, and since then he has managed to write here, mostly around his travel to London and UK. If I leave DL and SS, probably he is the youngest Ghumakkar I would be talking to. Someone who has never seen the days of having a single TV channel on a B&W set, no mobile phone, no internet, no malls and so on. Before I realised, I started getting panic attacks. I have no idea of what Arsenal is and why half of the world is crazy for EPL (English Premeier League). With an open mind (read: blank mind) and a child like curiosity I began my first interview of the lucky 2013 on a cold wintry evening.

Ghum: Tell us about yourself, your family, friends and everything around you ?
Shubham : I have a close group of friends in school, some of whom I’ve known since I was 3 years old. I live with my parents and my dadi.

I play football and am a football enthusiast. And as it says in my profile, I am an Arsenal fan. I play a bit of cricket as well- I support Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL. I am part of a band called Missing Links, formed with some of my close school friends. I am the lead singer. We’ve performed at a few places including IIT Delhi. We’re supposed to perform on Saturday 19th Jan, 2013 at La Crepe in Select Citywalk, Saket. I also play the keyboard.

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Ghumakkar of the Year – 2012

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A big thank you to Manish, Vibha and DL for allowing us to stalk them, bombarding them with conflicting parameters, contradicting and cajoling them on every opportunity and being the source of constant worry for the last two weeks of 2012.

After that, we agreed on some common guidelines and shared them with our esteemed Jury and the game began. After multiple rounds of conversations, jigs and re-jigs, we arrived at the final list. But before I announce that, a special shout out for Rishi Raj Gupta, Sushant Singhal and Praveen Wadhwa for giving the winners a fighting finish. All three of you were favorites to more than one Jury member and need a special hug. Congratulations.

And now, to the blow of a thousand trumpets, here’s the announcement of the fab final four Ghumakkars of the Year 2013, in reverse alphabetical order:

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Ghumakkar Featured Author Interview with Suave and Sophisticated RRG

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Actually, yes. Ghumakkar has had a positive effect on my travelogs. I have learnt from several Ghumakkars – I was new to writing travelogs before meeting you guys. So, while writing comes naturally to me, I did learn the nuances of travel writing from Ghumakkar. Before I started writing travelogs at Ghumakkar, I was travelling to gratify myself, without noting down a lot of details. After joining the Ghumakkar club, I now try and learn more about the places I visit, people I meet, etc. This helps me improve upon the travelogs; ensuring that all the right details reach every reader. During the Ladakh ride, I used to right down every day’s details, sometime even on a paper-tissue when proper writing papers were not available! Even images! Earlier, I was nor much into clicking images; now I do so more to share, and I must confess, Ghumakkars have been really generous with their praise about the photographs. It goes for videos too; I made my first ever travel video at Khardung La! I believe I still need to learn many more things that make a travelog meaningfully useful for others…

Other than that, my travelling habits haven’t changed much, though. I have always been a details-freak. Thus, doing homework about a place I am visiting is important for me. Ghumakkar, in fact, helps me ease up about travelling – may be, one day I will go backpacking in Europe, without the usual ado!

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Featured Author Interview : A walk with Praveen Wadhwa

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My father loved walking, he had a hard job. Railways employees seldom get any holidays as other government people in India. He was the in-charge of train’s maintenance crew who undertook the mechanical and physical repairs of all trains, goods or passenger carriers. Bhatinda is one of the biggest railways establishments in whole world and he walked a lot on his job because each goods train is about a kilometer long and as a part of his job he had to walk around each train at least once; sun or rain, hot or cold, day or night.
We all three brothers love walking. We all brothers went to public schools. Our school was far away and we walked to our school and then college was even farther and we either walked there or took our cycle. One by one we all three brothers immigrated to USA but love of walking stayed in our blood. Even my uncles and cousins love to walk. When we all get together then we take a long walk in the wilderness.

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Ghumakkar Featured Author Interview – Presenting Romantic Ritesh Gupta

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घुमक्कड़ – आप घुमक्कड़ी का शौक कब से रखते हैं? यह बचपन से लगी हुई लत है या फिर आपने बड़े होने पर आपने इसे अपनाया है?
रीतेश –  वैसे तो बचपन से ही मैं अपने परिजनों के साथ पता नहीं कहाँ-कहाँ गया पर अपने होश में (उस समय भी काफी छोटा था) सर्वप्रथम मैं अपने माता पिताजी और उनके मित्रों के साथ वैष्णो देवी और उसके बाद हरिद्वार गया था । इस यात्रा से मैं बहुत प्रभावित हुआ और घूमने के भूत मेरे सर पर चढ़ गया, पर छोटा होने के कारण माता पिता के बिना नहीं जा सकता था । फिर इस यात्रा काफी साल बाद सन 1995 में अपने आठ मित्रों के साथ स्वछन्द रूप से मैं वैष्णो देवी और पत्नीटॉप अपने परिजनों के बिना गया । उसके बाद मैं अक्सर अपने मित्रों के साथ नई-नई जगह सोचकर जाने लगा । अब तक मैं देश की काफी नामी-गिरामी स्थल घूम चुका हूँ और आशा हैं की आगे भी घूमता रहूगा । आजकल यदि साथ में घूमने वाले मित्र जाए तो बहुत हैं अन्यथा मैं अपने परिवार के साथ ही घूमने जाता हूँ । वैसे नंदन जी ! घूमना यह कोई लत नहीं बल्कि मेरा शौक हैं, मैं अपना समय के अनुसार और पूर्ण सहूलियत से घूमता हूँ  ।

घुमक्कड़ – माफ़ कीजियेगा रीतेश जी, पर हर शक्स अपनी हर लत के बारे में ऐसा ही कहता है | हे हे | 
रीतेश – हे हे 

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Featured Author Interview with Warm and Kind Mahesh Semwal

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For the month of August 2012, Mahesh is our ‘Featured Author of the Month’ and I had the privilege to talk to him again, this time armed with a formal agenda. I knew very well that I am carrying a lot of expectations from our community to know Mahesh more. Mahesh was traveling (what else) and was in Mumbai when we spoke and we had a hearty and honest chat, I know he is in ‘Sales Function’. Mahesh touched upon various subjects , from family to traveling to his current job and it was one of the most smooth and easy conversation I had. His simplicity and good hearted intentions were more than evident so without any further build-up, presenting Mahesh Semwal, in conversation with Ghumakkar.

Ghumakkar : Welcome Mahesh. Congratulations for being the ‘Ghumakkar Featured Author of the month’ for Aug 2012.
Mahesh : Thank you Nandan. It is a privilege and Ghumakkar is a family for me and there is no greater joy then to have a moment of celebration with near and dear one, so thanks once again.

Ghumakkar: I know, I have asked you this question before but for the benefit of our readers, please share the story on how did you find Ghumakkar ?
Mahesh: Sure. I would again repeat the same story. (hehe he). As you know, I make an annual pilgrimage to Dehradun

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घुमक्कड़ विशिष्ट लेखक साक्षात्कार – एक बातचीत प्रज्ञ और मृदु मनु के साथ

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घुमक्कड़ –  अपने बारे में ऐसा कुछ बताएं जो किसी घुमक्कड़ को नहीं पता हो| अपने परिवार से भी परिचित करवाएं|
मनु – मै जो भी काम करता हूं बडी लगन से ,इतनी जितनी की कोई और शायद ही करे , मै स्कूल और कालेज में पढाई के अलावा सांस्कृतिक कार्यक्रमो ,सुलेख  और अन्य प्रतियोगिताओ में बढचढकर भाग लेता था । मै बैडमिंटन , शतरंज और क्रिकेट खूब खेलता हूं अब भी चाहे साथ में छोटे बच्चे ही हों । संगीत मुझे प्रिय है और हजारेा गाने जिनमें कि ज्यादातर दर्द भरे और सूफी गाने और गजले हैं मेरे याद हैं  । मैने स्कूल कालेज और रामलीला के मंच तक में भाग लिया है ।
 
दसवीं के बाद मैने इंटर की पढाई प्राइवेट की क्योंकि मै  खुद कमाने लगा था जो आज तक जारी है । 
 
16 साल की उम्र में मैने अपने बडे भाई के साथ मिलकर एक पब्लिक स्कूल खोला था जो मेरे भाई की 1999 में अचानक मृत्यू होने के कारण दो साल ही चल पाया । उसके बाद मैने कम्पयूटर हार्डवेयर का कोर्स किया और अपना कम्पयूटर सैंटर खोला । 22 साल की उम्र में जनवरी 2004 में लवी से प्रेम विवाह हुआ जिसे घरवालो की रजामंदी मिल गयी थी और दिसम्बर 2004 में  बेटी अनुष्का ने जन्म लिया । लवी कम्पयूटर सिखाती थी और मै उनका खरीदने बेचने और रिपेयर का काम करता था  । 2007 में मेरे पिता की मृत्यू के बाद मेरी नौकरी उनके स्थान पर मृतक आश्रित में लग गयी । अब मेरे परिवार में मेरी माताजी , मेरी एक बडी बहन समता त्यागी जो कि श्री राजकुमार त्यागी निवासी गढमुक्तेश्वर से ब्याही हैं , मेरी पत्नी लवी और बेटी अनुष्का हैं

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Featured Author Interview – In conversation with Moody and Passionate SilentSoul

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Thank you SS for the wonderful conversation and sharing so many personal details and valuable insight and advice with us. As promised, here is the Bonus offering. For the first time, we have a 100 seconder video interview with SS. All the video encoding, mixing has been done by SS and to balance the effort put by SS, I traveled to Jhansi fort to ask these questions. May be this becomes another trend in future conversations.

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Featured Author Interview : In conversation with the literary and lovable DL

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Ghumakkar: You like to be called as DL. Multiple times you have requested (and reminded) people to address you as DL. Why ? What is the story behind this ?
DL: Heh Heh. Well, Yes. Let me first affirm again that I wish to be addressed as DL. Just DL, nothing before or after. It makes me feel more warm, more closer. I do not like salutations and lets keep it that way.

Well, as you would know, I am from Andhra Pradesh. My full name is Dhanalakota Lakshmi Narayan (धनालकोटा लक्ष्मी नारायण ). We use surname as a prefix and amongst the boys of my generation every other person in Andhra was either a Laxmi Narayan or some other Narayan. Calling just Narayan was even more confusing so my classmates started calling me DL and it stuck on. All through, my friends, my close peers, and now you and people at Ghumakkar call me DL. And that is what it should be. Lol.

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Featured Author Interview – In conversation with lyrical and thoughtul Manish Kumar

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Ghumakkar – By now, a lot of Ghumakkars know quite a bit about your love for traveling and undying passion for music. Please tell us something about your personal life. How a regular day unfolds for Manish ?
Manish – Yes, my love for traveling or Ghumakkari is probably quite popular and as you said that my undying passion for music keeps me awake and working for long time. Let me go back and share my story beginning from school.

I did my complete schooling from Patna, a city which has been there for ages. (Read Mahesh’s story on Patna – here ) Then I moved to Ranchi to finish my engineering from BIT, Mesra. That was close to 20 years back. I quickly moved to Faridabad, a suburb of National Capital Delhi, and worked briefly before going back to academics to finish my Masters from Roorkee. I joined SAIL (Steel Authority of India Limited) in 1997 at Ranchi and been here since then.

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Vishal Rathod in a tête-à-tête with Ghumakkar

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I am fairly prepared for going through this kind of stuff, and often multiple times and having learnt through trial-and-error, I believe that if you hang-in long enough, you would get through. In this particular case, I could sense the perseverance. I had my doubts but I kept my belief intact. More weeks went by and Vishal, the alert among you would have made this out, and myself continued to find our ways together, stitching stories and getting better with every new day. We hanged on (or hung on, whatever) and it is been less than a year and I am so proud to share with all of you (one more time) that Vishal is our ‘Ghumakkar Featured Author for April 2012’. I had the opportunity to talk to him early this month and here is the conversation we had with Vishal over phone and email, where we discussed spirituality, travel, NASA and much more.

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