Editorial

True, my friend XYZ’s Uncle’s Cousin was put on lifelong medication after he got a medical checkup done, but it wasn’t the medical checkup that gave him hypertension. He was perhaps living with this risky disease for several years before it was diagnosed and God know what could have happened had the person not gone for a medical checkup. But ignoring a doctor’s advise is as common to us as ignoring that scary label on a cigarette packet or the common sense that too much alcohol is bad for our health.

So we go on living in a denial of the fact that at any points in our adult life, our body isn’t getting any younger. And that we need to take care of it. If we have missed the bus to preventive care, we absolutely need to take curative measures, to make sure that we are able to live a life we want to and travel to all those exotic places on our must-visit lists.

More than 20 Ghumakkars braved it. Tridev Sir and Silentsoul played the role of Sutradhars and helped us introduce each other. Apart from Sushant who came all the way from Saharanpur, the spirit of whom we salute from the bottom of our hearts, Naresh Sehgal joined us all the way from Ambala. As people started to gather, it was difficult to grasp so much warmth in that little a space. I would let the attendees talk more via ‘Comments’ section of this post. For me, it was an overwhelming experience. We didn’t talk a lot but somehow it feels that the connect and bond has suddenly grown much stronger. The first meet was a beginning and I do hope that it carries on, in smaller or bigger way, in different seasons, in various setups and in various cities and tahsheels and mohallas. It need not be bound by the fact that whether someone is writing on Ghumakkar.com or not, but by the sheer heady spirit of traveling. I would take this opportunity yet again to mention that traveling builds tolerance and tolerance builds peace.

This is an age-old problem human beings are trying to resolve. We are on an unending quest to have it all. But the truth is that we always have to make hard choices, we have to give up things. And especially if it is for following your passion, not everyone will appreciate your stand. It takes a true braveheart to go against the flow, and there are several sacrifices one has to make.

I have talked about my love for winters quite a lot. And it is no secret that I hate summers. But this post isn’t about how bad summers are. No, sir! It is in fact about the little blessings of summers, and when I think about it, it wasn’t so difficult to come up with the list. I only had to ask myself “what is it about summers that I don’t detest?”, and the answers poured like a soothing monsoon upon the sun-dried earth.

Summers are here and with them the sweltering, all-melting heat, especially if you are living in the plains in Northern India and the coastal regions. When in school, we at least had the satisfaction of being able to chill at home during the blissfully long summer vacations. Of course there was the much-hated holiday homework. But even that failed to dampen our spirits. I managed to keep the homework blues away by the ever-useful tool, procratination. I kept on putting off the homework to the next day and in most cases ended up tackling the humungous monster in the last two days of holiday. And the fun didn’t end there. During those last two days, while I slept on time, my mom and my elder sister ended up burning the midnight oil to complete MY holiday homework. I wonder why I never got a whack for this.

Within them, they took us to entire Kumaon, most of Kashmir, villages of Switzerland, a large part of Rajasthan and finally to snowy Shimla. A respite from the heat that we’re folded in with intermittent reminders of the ground realities. Welcome aboard.

Ghumakkar Guide is something which we have spoken about in the past but we could publish the first only now. The intent is write a under 10 minute read quick guide with all the useful and important information around ‘How to Reach‘, ‘How to move around locally‘, ‘What to do‘ in a short and useful structure. We also refer some of our top stories which we have published on the particular destination and we hope to keep these guides updated over time. The first one was on San Francisco and if you would want to write one on your favourite destination then give me a shout, we would love to work with you and publish it.

Getting back to time machine travel part of this guide, my pick is to not miss Vijay’s log on Goa in Monsoons, Vishal long ride back home from Leh, and Mala’s hueful Kashmir.

If Holi and a visit to temples excite you then please accompany Munesh on this travel to Barsana and Nand Gaon or with Naresh where he paints a vivid picture of ‘Prem Mandir‘.

In terms of travel, February started with some much-needed driving lessons from Aurojit, as he gets ready to take us to central Europe in his Skoda. The drive is yet to happen and we are all eagerly waiting or it, well secured in our seat belts. Sumit’s maiden story on Pahalgam was another tribute to the popular movie Betab and the valley named after it. Paulami showed us more of white Rann and white salt, after teasing us with tales of Lion sighting in Gir. If you have never seen a Lion in wild, then go and read this story. Upanshu made us lose our sleep and some money in Macau and Mala took us on this mystic steamer ride to Sundabans, the land of tigers and honey collectors. Time to take a brief break and indulge in the conversation which we had with Ajay Sharma, our Featured Author for February 2014, early this month.

The cold is almost on the way out. Out here, in the National Capital, we witnessed a lot of action, both on and off the road. Suddenly Delhi is abuzz with a new Government, and almost everyone wants to talk about politics. However, it is a low season for travel since most of us are just back from the year-end vacations. Kids are back to school and grown-up are getting busy with the chores. Though it is a low season, we were able to churn-out some real gems of travel writing, and a few from the forgotten years as well. I would take you through the stories in a while but first things first, our Editor-on-sabbatical went the Mom-way early this week and the baby and mom are doing fine. And our Editor-on-Desk is working hard to finalise the Featured Story of the month so that I can include it before finishing this piece.

January is also a time for new resolutions and I am hoping that Travel has a firm and steady place in your resolutions for 2014. In the words of Gustave Flaubert, “Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” Once you know this well, it is never hard to leave your place for some place else.

Now back to our roster on December. The month definitely belonged to Ajay Sharma who kept driving, almost every single day. If you have not been able to read his road-trip spanning thousands of kilometres then please take some time off and cherish this real road-trip. Closer to home, Avtar Singh brought two poetic and lyrical logs on Amer Fort (Rajasthan) and ‘Sabir Ali’s Dargah’ (Western Uttar Pradesh). Both the logs were tremendously liked, commented, discussed and excited among us also took well-meaning jibes at our Editorial desk. Thank you. Going further Ram finished his North-East trip with a excellent log on Majuli, a nondescript island town and treasure trove of art and culture. Before we move further, let me take a little break and take you through this snippet from the Interview post where Archana interacted with Upanshu Singhal, our outgoing Featured Author.