Nandan Jha, Author at Ghumakkar - Inspiring travel experiences.

Featured Author Interview with Warm and Kind Mahesh Semwal

By Nandan Jha

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

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

By Nandan Jha

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

Featured Author Interview – In conversation with Moody and Passionate SilentSoul

By Nandan Jha

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.

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

By Nandan Jha

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.

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

By Nandan Jha

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.

Vishal Rathod in a tête-à-tête with Ghumakkar

By Nandan Jha

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.

Binsar Eco Camp – Hotel Review

By Nandan Jha

Rooms are humble and washrooms are utilitarian. If you are looking at spending time indoors over cosy conversations and luxurious room-service then this is not the place. Rooms are best used for sleeping (and do a good job with that) and then you should be outdoors. Room fittings, furniture, bathroom fittings are all there for their functionality, they are comfortable and value for money.

Bed sheets were OK (not crisp as in Chaukori) but I would blame that on rainy season.

Ghumakkar Featured Author Interview with Professor Manish Khamesra

By Nandan Jha

I often cherish the only trip I did with the couple in 2002 (or may be before) to Orchha. Countless evenings of Tea, Rajasthani namkeens, sitting on those cool white marble floors at their place, discussing books, religion, morals, Hindi poetry and numerous stupid things which we do when we are young. Even the local market (the now famous sector 18 of Noida) was not at all busy and one can just sit alongside those rickety fountains and spend the evening, doing nothing. Sometimes we would polish the day off with a movie at Dharamplace or Alka theatre which still looked and acted like being in 60s, frozen in time. Old world charm is what some say. When you meet your old friends you always feel the warmth of assurance, the ether which connects you is just viscous enough to hold you together without restricting any freedom.

Leaving Munsyari – The long drawn route

By Nandan Jha

So with full gusto, I rev-ed the engine and started back amid beautiful landscapes, away from the thoughtful and calm gaze of Panchachuli, the peak which was in the back yard of our stay. The journey from Munsyari to Birthi was spent gazing at mountains, standing tall and quite, looking at the occasional habitat along side the road with Pahadi folk wearing black topis, half jacket over long shirts and pajamas and throwing infectious smiles as they go through with their daily chores. Because of rains, the road was not in its prime so we were a tad cautious; but there was an natural desire to drive a little faster and be able to reach Sattal, which as per our friends from Pahad was not a realistic goal.

Presenting Nikhil Chandra, “Ghumakkar Featured Author” for February 2012

By Nandan Jha

I also apply the usual tricks of showing interest in those things that has been mentioned in the Bio, and try to put up a fake face of being someone who is so passionate about those interests as no body’s business. I know it sounds so stupid and average but then you have to do full justice for any job you take on. To appreciate and understand this better, I would encourage you to read his profile at Ghumakkar. For February 2012 ‘Ghumakkar Featured Author’, I did all of this but realized that I am as ill-prepared and un-equipped as I was a fortnight back. There is hardly anything (Ok, may be 3-D modeling is not listed) which is not there.

To make things worse, there was a scheduling gap so the interview didn’t happen at the identified time. The few hours delay, didn’t make the things any easier for me and I braced myself for a eventful and adventurous talk with Nikhil Chandra, the ‘Ghumakkar Featured Author’ for Feb 2012.

घुमक्कड़ साक्षात्कार – द्विभाषी घुमक्कड़ मुकेश के साथ

By Nandan Jha

घुमक्कड़.कॉम के पाठकों को नव वर्ष की हार्दिक शुबकामनाएं| “Featured Authors” की श्रंखला में २०१२ जनवरी में एक ऐसा नाम जुड़ा है जो इस…

Ghumakkars of the year – 2011

By Nandan Jha

Thank you Ram, Nisha, Manish and Jaishree for readily agreeing and for your detailed write-up on your selections. Thank you.

Yet, as expected, we did not get the same names so we did a little bit of union and intersection and arrived at top 6 Ghumakkars. Each of these 6 had at least one vote on each parameter and most of them had more than one vote while one person had all three. I will hold the excitement here.

So we did some slice-n-dice of data, looked at relative rankings from the jury and in the end fell back on our own judgment to arrive at the final 3. So far so good. After we arrived on final 3, we incubated the decision for some more time. This was to ensure that we are indeed fully convinced or not and once that went past, it was time to raise the curtain.

So with much ado, I take pride in announcing the winners of ‘Ghumakkar of the Year 2011’ award and the names are (in no particular order)