Ghumakkar Editorial Monthly Digest – January 2013

Every New Year is a harbinger of new hopes, dreams and expectations. With each new year we should forget the past, dream of a brighter future and sail through the year, with occasional ups and downs. The year 2012 ended well, with no dooms day :) Do you thank God for it or are you disappointed? Heehee.. I am an eternal optimist and hence have no regrets for what dint happen ! It only gave more time for us to explore more places, don’t you think?

It has just been a month and we have traveled to so many places on Ghumakkar! While Praveen Gupta took us on a yatra to Maa Vaishno Devi, Dr.Taher took us on a pilgrimage to Hajj; while Praveen Wadhwa took us on a tour to Alaska , we traveled with Shubham to Scotland. Each story is a great travelogue describing the unforgettable moments and amazing experiences of our dear Ghumakkars. Haven’t you read them yet? Indulge in these posts and take a virtual tour to all the places!

In the month of January, a few authors made a grand entry into the Ghumakkar family. With their debut posts already online, they have accrued a lot of followers as well! In my opinion, they all don’t need a formal introduction. Nevertheless, I take it on me to tell a few things about these newbies.

The Ghumakkar new authors of this month are: Naresh Sehgal ,Rakesh Bawa, Sarthak & Saurabh Gupta.

Naresh Sehgal came to Ghumakkar through Google Search. Does it sound weird? Well, let me explain. While searching for a tour to Garhwal ,he came across Praveen Wadhwa’s post on Ghumakkar website. Ever since then, Naresh has been a regular reader for our website. Here he is now, writing stories for us! Traveling to Amarnath Shrine , VaishnoDevi temple and the like are some of the things he loves to do. He is a great lover of GOD and thus travels to religious places often. Himalayas are another area of his interest. So what does all this sum up to? A whole lot of Ghumakkari, of course! There is definitely one point I would like to mention here. Naresh has been going to Amarnath since 2002, which means he has traveled 12 times to Amarnath Shrine!! Bravo! With his first post on Amarnath Yatra, he grabbed the attention of all and appreciation of everyone. Welcome to Ghumakkar, Naresh!

Rakesh is a College professor who, along with his family, is smitten by the travel bug. He lives in Jalandar, Punjab with his family.His entry to Ghumakkar happened with his post on Mewar. He has already written 2 posts for this series and has received a great response from our community. Sounds like a great start isn’t it? Well well… For this he is going to say – “This is just the beginning.. Aage aage dekho.. hota hain kya ;)“

Sarthak Chandra is a software Engineer by profession, a Ghumakkar by passion and a biker by choice! His gang consists of men and their machines. Before you start imagining what these machines are, let me tell you, they are mean machines vrooming proudly on roads that take you to wonderful places!His series – Ride to Rajasthan got him into Ghumakkar community and is earning a lot of compliments from all. Just to tell you how lucky he got during his trip- he was stopped by and treated like a celebrity; was given free food by a popular hotel, what more can one ask for!
The pictures in his story tell a tale themselves. Don’t stop here, read his posts to experience it yourself!

Saurabh Gupta is our next newbie on Ghumakkar. With about 15 years of service to his credit, he has now begun his own business. His love for nature and wildlife has taken him to several beautiful destinations.
A majestic post talking about the King of the Jungle marks his entry to Ghumakkar.His post got a roaring response from both the English and Hindi authors. A ride in the jungle is definitely a hair-raising experience, don’t you think? Read more from his post by clicking here

While in the spree of making announcements, let me also mention a few things about January’s Featured Author –Shubham Sarcar.

Nandan was caught in a conversation with this little champ and here is an excerpt from that :
“…Ghum: Shubham, you have been writing on Ghumakkar for the last five years! And at the time you started, you were barely nine years old. When did this flair for writing start?
Shubham : It all started with dad asking me to write to improve my handwriting. Initially I used to just copy sports articles from Mail Today. Then I started writing my own reviews of the football/ cricket matches I watched with dad. Then I went to Garhmukhteshwar on a school trip (when I was in class 4) and dad asked me to write about my experience on that trip. That piece was hosted on Ghumakkar. Since then I have been writing – mainly on travel.

Click here to read the entire article.

Any new thing needs investment of time and effort for familiarity. It took me some time to get a grip on the Editorial tasks too. Similarly,the new authors too get benefited with our constant mentoring.

We make them familiar with the process of creating a new post on the website until it reaches the scheduling phase. The essentials involved in this process are also told to them and we take responsibility in making them comfortable with the process. This month Amitava Chatterjee was guided through this process.

Being in the Editorial team, it becomes my responsibility to keep track of the posts. When I look at it at a very high-level, I feel immensely proud to see a great variety of posts and a greater variety of authors joining our community. I see no two authors with similar writing style. Posts too these days are getting unique not only w.r.t style but also the content. Probably, this is when we see the need for a category called FoG. In this month, we saw several more posts adding to our FoG list. Please take a quick look at them by clicking the below links:

Valparai series
Chattikara Vaishno Devi temple
Himachal Yatra
CHITRAKOOT DHAM : Kamadgiri Mountain and Hanuman Dhara-part 3
CHITRAKOOT DHAM : Kamadgiri Mountain and Hanuman Dhara- part 2
CHITRAKOOT DHAM : Kamadgiri Mountain and Hanuman Dhara-part1
Hariyali Idhar Udhar…
Towards Cassiar highway. Alaska Omnibus 6
Towards Cassiar highway. Alaska Omnibus 5
Towards Cassiar highway. Alaska Omnibus 4
Hyder, a secret place near the end of Earth. Alaska Omnibus 3
Hyder, a secret place near the end of Earth. Alaska Omnibus 2
Hyder, a secret place near the end of Earth. Alaska Omnibus 1
Hajj: The Final Installment – What it means to be a Haji
Ruins Of Alamparai Fort on East Coast Highway
Kodanadu View Point, Kotagiri (Ooty) Nilgiri Omnibus

You can also browse through them at: FoG Posts. Please do write back to us if you feel we have missed any post which , in your opinion, fits into this category.

As we read the posts, there are a few posts which stand out. And let me not take any more time and announcement the, ““Featured Story of the Month”

गढ़वाल घुमक्कड़ी: तपोवन – रुद्रप्रयाग – दिल्ली is this month’s Featured Story written by none other than Vipin.

Congratulations Vipin.

He describes himself as a “Junglee” – because he finds happiness wandering in the forests , among the trees, mountains, lakes and the like! It is his passion for these natural beauties of nature that drives him to various locations and gives us such wonderful stories. Vipin’s “गढ़वाल घुमक्कड़ी: तपोवन – रुद्रप्रयाग – दिल्ली” is our Featured story of this month. This series talks about his journey to Rishikesh, Rudraprayag, Delhi , Badri and several other places. A truly inspiring series of serendipity, long Himalayan walks and being in the woods with just a little backpack. Read this long series to travel with Vipin, who has taken us along to this really marvelous travel. Here is a snippet from the story:

“…थोडा आगे आने पर पुनीत ने चालक साब से पूछा कि कहाँ तक जाओगे तो इस बार उसने कहा कि मुझे रात होने से पहले श्रीनगर पहुँचना है जहाँ से उसकी एक यात्रा की बुकिंग थी. रुद्रप्रयाग पहुँचने से पहले ही पुनीत और दीपक ने आगे यात्रा जारी रखने में अपनी असमर्थता जताई. मैं हालांकि यात्रा को पूरी करना चाहता था, पर दोनों को ऐसी हालत में देखकर मुझे उनका साथ देना ही मुनासिब लगा.

रास्ते में हम लोग लोग थोड़ी देर रुद्रप्रयाग में रुके और फिर चल दिए श्रीनगर की ओर. श्रीनगर पहुँचते पहुँचते हमें काफी देर हो चुकी थी और आज रात इससे आगे जाने का कोई साधन नहीं दिख रहा था. कोई जीप या बस मिलने की तो संभावना बिलकुल भी नहीं थी क्योंकि यहाँ हिमाचल की तरह रात को बसें नहीं चलती. ऐसे में हमारे चालक साब ने हमें रात श्रीनगर में ही बिताने का सुझाव दिया और हमें रात गुजारने का एक ठिकाना भी दिखाया. हमने ठिकाना तो देख लिया पर अब किसी का भी यहाँ रुकने का मन नहीं था और सब जल्द से जल्द घर पहुँचना चाहते थे. उत्तरांचल में वैसे तो रात को कोई वाहन नहीं चलते पर सब्ज़ी फल आदि रसद पहुँचाने वाले ट्रकों की आवाजाही रात भर चालू रहती है, सोचा क्यों ना इसे ही आजमाया जाए.

आज शायद किस्मत हम पर मेहरबान थी, थोडा पूछ्तात करने पर ही हमें एक ट्रक मिल गया जो हरिद्वार तक जा रहा था. ट्रक चलने में अभी लगभग आधा घंटा बाकी था और सुबह सिर्फ आश्रम में ही भोजन किया था इसलिए एक ढाबे पर जाकर थोड़ी पेट पूजा की गई….”
Click here to read the entire story.

In the monthly digest, I am allowed to kill suspense :) So, let me announce who the Featured Author for February ’13 is!
Sushant Singhal is our Featured Author for the next month. His first story came up in July 2012 and since then he has written in excess of 20 stories and is considered the King of Humor at Ghumakkar. Equally adept in English as well as Hindi, Sushant truly deserves the honor. Congratulations Sushant!

A detailed interview with him will be published in the mid of next month. Watch out for that to know him more!

Congratulations Sushant.

That is all for this edition of the Monthly Digest. We hope you liked it. Do write to us, we love to hear from you! Your suggestions and feedback are valuable to us. Together, we can make Ghumakkar.com an experience in itself! Write to us at: info@ghumakkar.com.

We will be back with more in the next edition of the Monthly Digest. Until then,

Adios amigos!