Over the last 7 years of Ghumakkar’s existence, one common and often repeated request was to have some kind of face to face interaction within the community. Many of our community members have met with each other, and have developed long lasting friendships. In fact, at times it is very humbling to know that someone met someone else at Ghumakkar and now both the families not only interact and meet each other but also travel to new places, together. That gives the Ghumakkar crew a feeling of true accomplishment. I, myself, have met many of you and each experience has been a rewarding one. But we never had a so-called ‘Ghumakkar Meet’. What better way to start this monthly digest than to share with all of you that first such organised meeting is finally happening in September 2014 in Delhi. This meet is a brain-child of one of our seasoned trekkers and someone who just moves on with a travel with little to nil planning. Gives me immense pleasure to announce that Vipin Gaur has graciously invited all of us to be together on September 7.
Here are more details, right from the event which Vipin created at Facebook.
Ghumakkar Meet. Sep 7. 1645 hrs. Lodi Gardens. Delhi
Ghumakkar Gathering. Sep 7. 1645 hrs. Lodi Gardens. Delhi
I hope you manage to read the rest of the digest so here’s a run down of this month’s dose of inspiration. If you have not been keeping yourself abreast then this digest would at least give you a peek at things. First, let us welcome our new author of this month.
Please welcome, Tipsy Tips, thats her pseudonym, or shall I say the screen name. She took us to this romantic holiday to Matheran, something where we didn’t mind getting drenched, after all the heat wave and El-Nino we have witnessed. In her own words:
 Tipsy Tips |
“Traveling | Eating | Watching movies | Photography | Drawing | Sipping Coffee | Writing | Shopping | ~ All Economical. In love with my city, Mumbai.” |
Welcome aboard Tipsy Tips. Hope to read more from you.
And now it is time for re-visiting the stories. August started with élan with one of our senior most (Mr. Sethi, I believe Mr. Mathai is senior to you, sorry, hard luck, hehe) author penning his reminiscences from 1960s. In this old story Jatinder takes us to the south and shares some of the golden photographs of that era. If you have not read his story then you have not earned enough karma for yourself. To share an excerpt:
“Our trip to Jog Falls, Mysore, Ooty, Kodai, Sherwanorbagola, Coorg by our Herald Car was in June1973—still the days gone by! In Mysore we stayed with my wife’s brother who was working for ESSO. One thing we remember is that a man used to come early morning to the house and bring his cow with him. He will milk the cow in our presence and deliver the milk –bucket-full.”
Manali-in-1966
Here is a link of the full story – https://www.ghumakkar.com/some-memories-of-travels-of-days-gone-by-1960-1975/
The two big highlights of the month were these two series of stories, which interestingly are on the same destination. For the first time, we have two series on ‘Baba Amarnath Yatra’ going on back to back. One from the veteran Naresh Amarnath Sehgal who is taking us via the Baltal route and sharing his experience in hindi and the other is by Anupam Chakarborty who is narrating his tale in English from the Pahalgam route. Both stories uniquely told and inspiringly delivered.
From Naresh
From Anupam
Mukesh Bhai continued to enthral us with his comprehensive, warm and all inclusive logs on Manali and Manikaran. Silentsoul’s photographic treat on Niagra was lapped up by readers and after a brief sabbatical, Abheeruchi returned to give us a tour of Montreal. We hope to see more of Canada via Abhee’s eyes and logs. That also reminds us of Surinder Sharma of Canada whom we have not seen for a while. Along with Abhee, we also saw a return of the mariner Naman with his log on Andamans. Naman is finishing his school in another year or so and then hopefully we would all sail to all parts of the world.
Welcome to Andamans
Among road trips, Nitish drove us to Doon. Unstoppable Ajay took us to Deeg Fort, a lesser known marvel which is so close to national capital yet not visited by many. Sharmistha took us to another lesser know place called Kaluk, a weekend destination from Kolkata. And to have a complete trio, we re-published an old gem on another lesser known hamlet of Uttrakhand, a retreat new Jhaltola. Visit all three places after reading all three stories.
That’s the round up of all the stories. And now is the time to announce the ‘Featured Story’ of the month. We have always tried to pick the one which have touched the hearts of Ghumakkar and as long as a story is told with all the warmth and honesty, it makes to the list of ‘Featured Stories’. Congratulations, Sethi Sir. We are lucky to have been a small part of your fabulous and inspiring journey and we feel blessed to have you guiding us. Please give a pat on your back, with or without the Ghumakkar T-shirt.
And takes us to close of this digest. I hope to see many of you at the ‘Ghumakkar Gathering Event’ and the traveling continues. Once again, warm welcome to Tipsy Tips and congratulations to Jatinder.
Vipin thanks for arranging this meeting , very much appreciated.
Looking forward to meet u guys !
Thanks to Vipin for arranging the Ghumakkar Meet first since its inception. All the Ghumakkars who have been eyeing to happen this will now be very happy. It will be a great moment for the Ghumakkars.
However, I feel that the time left for non resident Delhi-an is very short and may not be possible for all such non resident to joint the meet. My best wishes to all in advance.
@Nandan: You have beautifully sum-up the ghumakkari tales of the month. I feel you were so much excited with the announcement of Ghumakkar meet that you missed to mention about my story “Pahalgam, in Kashmir” in the digest. :-)
Looking forward to see more on the meet. This time I will not be able to make it to there, however, I hope to join all Ghumakkars in future whenever such meet will again be organised allowing sufficient time to reach the venue. One more thing, the facebook link “Vipin created at Facebook” not working. If I click the link it shows “This content is currently unavailable”
Welcome aboard, Tipsy Tips!
@ Mr. Sethi: Many many congratulations to you Sir for the featured story.
Thank you, Nandan, for Elevating me to high level of Ghumakkar Digest-and a place of Honour; I am also glad to.
know that there is another ghumakkar higher than me(Mr. Mathai)
Well, wish you,Nandan personally, and your fast growing -up baby-ghumakkar- greater heights ,
My regards to all the past and present ghumakkars.
As Allama Iqbal says:- Tu Shahin hai Perwaaz hai kaam tera
Tairey samney Aassman aur bhi hain
God bless
Correction Please: In the first line of second Para of my earlier comment, instead of “non-resident Delhi-an” please read “non-resident of Delhi”.
A Ghumakkar meeting, now that is really interesting, every time I visit Ghumakkar I discover something wonderful… hope to attend the same., but please check the event is appearing offline as of now.
@ Anupam – Yes, on purpose. The log didn’t need any further re-iteration. Hehe. Just kidding. Actually we try to cover as many as we can. I am hoping that many such local meets happen, in the same way as this one. There are a few Ghumakkar folks in that part of India. You never know, the world may conspire to have all of you sharing a table.
@ Prasad – I can access it. Not sure if there was some intermittent issue.
@Nandan I still can’t access it, may be Vipin has done the the privacy settings only for friends on Friend of Friends…can you please check once again. Thanks or share the link from your profile here.
Yes, thats what I guessed. I have alerted Vipin on this. Would send you invite separately in any case. Best.
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Summing up of past month’s events and posts by Nandan has been very interesting. Manali series by Mukesh Bhalse, Reminiscences of the 60’s by Mr. Sethi have indeed been highlights of the month. Since Matheran is in my eternal wish-list, I can’t help reading whenever the word “Matheran” jumps in front of my eyes. So Tipsy Tips delighted me too with her account. Rest, I have yet to go through.
Looking forward to meet everyone on 7th.
!!! Ghumakkar Meet !!!
Interesting idea, looking forward to attend the same.
Nandan – Event link is not working for me as well.
So, finally it is going to happen soon and the reverse counting has been begun…
Thanx Vipin for creating this event and SS sir for becoming the tool of inspiration for such an event. Hope SS ji will be fine enough till then to enrich all of them through his vast experience and knowledge.
@Nandan : Nice and fluent write up as always, beautifully summed up all the major activities.
@Mr Sethi, congratulation for the honour!
Probably the event is tied to Vipin’s account. Let me see if I can send the invite to you Deependra and Prasad. This is all his own effort (and Silent Soul) and I am just the message board here :-)
thanks :)
I would call this a “Ghumakkar meet for Delhites” because its not possible for us even to think about planning visit to Delhi on such a short notice, otherwise I was possibly the first person to request Nandan to organize such an event and undoubtedly we would have been the first family to join this meet if we could get the info at least one month prior……
Well, a big thanks to Vipin for taking the initiative.
Thanks.
Thanks Vipin for arranging this meet. Eagerly waiting to meet the fellow Ghumakkars.
@ Nandan : Thanks for this nicely summed up monthly digest.
@ Mr. Sethi , Congratulation for the featured story of the month.
Naresh Dear
I feel humbled and, of-course honoured for this –shall we call this–Oscar of Ghumakkar?(Nandan?)-.
Wish your MEET a great Success.
Welcome to the ghumakkar family Tipsy Tips & heartiest congratulations to Sethi Saab for this honour…:)
Thank you, Nandan Bhai for featuring this ghumakkar meet in the monthly digest! This was a very informal event…but have opened it (in fb) for all the fellow ghumakkars…so everyone can join in…:)…One can call me up (9560692929) for direction or any other detail…look forward to see you all on Sunday…hope the weather be at it’s best…:)
It’s really nice to read about the ghumakkar meet. Thanks to Vipin bhai for the event but today I am reading this digest otherwise definitely I would try to attend that.
Congrats to Mr. Sethi for his featured story.
@ Nandan Ji……… Thanks for the update…….. still many stories are here to read but still looking when my time permits.
@ Vipin – No thanks Vipin. Because of your initiative a lot of us could meet that day. I would write more about it in this month’s digest and hopefully more such meets happen soon, all around
@ Saurabh – We would do a better job at informing people next time. I understand Saurabh about the time bit, but whenever you get time to read, do comment. Wishes.