Ghumakkar Editorial Monthly Digest – March 2013

Greetings to all my dear readers! We have reached the end of another fabulous month of this year and as we stand here, we have mainly two things to do – retrospect about the month that was and look forward to another extra-ordinary month of April!
It is the season of colors – spring bringing in the various hues of nature and of course the magical shades of Holi. Did you all have a good time with all your loved ones? Write to us about it. We want to hear more from you!

Last month we talked about the outages and other troubles that Ghumakkar faced. We also shared our modus-operandi to tackle those issues. This month we have some good news! We worked out some measures and fortunately we have accomplished some performance improvement and a few changes have also gone into the “look and feel” of the website.

Our constant effort is to make Ghumakkar a lovable experience for our fellow readers and authors. In this process, we make changes and share it with you all. At Ghumakkar, what we have always loved is how welcoming our community is when we make changes on technical front or otherwise. Likewise, we are more enthusiastic when it comes to welcoming our new authors! I mean it when I say that this part – the introduction of new authors to our community, is my personal favorite! It gives me joy sufficient enough to keep me happy through out the month! Without much ado, let us get introduced to our newest members of the family.

Gaurav has told us about his first love – yes he really has! He says exploring new places and enjoying the beauty of nature is his first love. What else did you think he told us? Just kidding! He is the Senior Managing Editor at an Educational Institution and strongly believes in the mantra “Life is short, let’s explore the world around…” His post on Mukteshwar marks his debut on Ghumakkar and we are sure that this is just the beginning and he is here to stay!


Next on the list is Jagmohan Rawat. With his Esteem machine (as he calls it), he traveled to Delhi from Hyderabad and it is the experience from this trip that he shared with us on his very first post. With a very systematic writing pattern, his post gives details on some observations he made, some recommendations and ofcourse his experience. Good start, Jagmohan!

Mukta is our next new comer. Clearly, the title of her post – “Enchanting Sikkim, Disappointing Darjeeling” gives a one-liner description of the trip! She says she is a die hard Ghumakkar and is totally in love with the Himalayas. Last detail is a bit interesting – she is a banker by profession, Well, you know whom to go to when you have some financial needs ! Just kidding! Please join me in welcoming Mukta!

Pankaj is that new author who is the “Happiest Guy” as he says he is. He says, he is here to sprinkle the dust of happiness on all of us. He is ghumakkar by choice who loves to travel to hilly destinations and has so much more to share with us. Read more about him @ Ghoomakkar Pankaj.

Have you met a complete foodie @ Ghumakkar? If you haven’t then please meet our next newbie – Prakash. He says he is a “foodie by heart, tongue & stomach”! Apart from being a foodie, he is a Project Manager in KPO in Gurgaon. He always believes that traveling is the best stress buster for modern day’s lifestyle, especially for those working in IT companies. The Char Dham Yatra is his entry post and has already written 3 in succession. We are sure these roots will grow deeper and his position in Ghumakkar pariwar gets stronger with each post! Welcome Prakash!

While these new authors brought in their own variant of Ghumakkari to us, our existing jewels contributed in their own way!
Praveen took us on a tour to Ecuador, ASG mesmerized us with his post on Leh, Anupam shared his experience with us about the memorable trip to the Great Himachal and Abhee took us down south to the charismatic city of Chennai. Lot of other posts kept us all entertained through out the month. Have a look at them and share your opinions with the authors. Your comments help them all!

Commenting and sharing your feedback with the authors establishes a virtual but strong connect with the authors. These bonds have helped in making Ghumakkar more like a family than a website. Today, Ghumakkar as a family houses new authors as well as profound and famous old-timers. And every month, we take the opportunity to identify talented individuals and honor them with a title which is close to our hearts. Ghumakkar Featured Author of the Month it is! This month, this title goes to Venkat !
Venkat is one of our popular writers and his stories about some of the places of South India has won several fans from all over the country. He is one of those few authors who have written extensively about South Indian destinations. We tried our best to get you some details about him during our conversation. Please read on for knowing him better :
“Ghumakkar: Venkat, many congratulations for being the ‘Featured Author’ of the month!
Venkat: Thank you Nandan. I am very obliged to the editorial team for this honour and recognition. Thank you.
Ghumakkar : No, actually many thanks for being around and for your lovely and warm (and delicious) travel tales from this part of India.

Ghumakkar: Let me begin with the most asked and now the most boring question. You have been with Ghumakkar for close to three years now. Please share on how you landed on Ghumakkar ?

Venkat: I am proud to have been associated with Ghumakkar for the last three years (though not as prolific as others). I became aware of Ghumakkar through a google link and ever since that first visit to this day, it has been a thoroughly enjoyable and fruitful association. I do not exactly remember but I was looking for some travel destinations, found Ghumakkar, started reading about it and then as they say, there was no looking back….”

While stories from proficient authors like Venkat and others are a category by themselves, we do have another category called the FoG which we recognize off late. The posts under this category talk about unique places discussed first time on Ghumakkar.
You can view the cumulative list of all FoGs until now here.

Any work done with passion gets recognized within no time. It catches everybody’s attention instantaneously. Naresh Sehgal‘s posts on Kedar and Badri did such a magic on us!

Naresh is a GOD loving person who loves to travel to Amarnath often. He loves to travel and is fond of blogging – perfectly matches the trait of Ghumakkar. We will fail from our duty if we do not award it with the Featured Story of the Month title. Here is a snippet from the series which bags this title :
“…. पिपलाकोटी पहुँचकर ड्राईवर ने गाड़ी को एक गाड़ी रिपेयर की दुकान के आगे रोक दिया और पूछने पर बताया कि गाड़ी की ब्रेक में कुछ दिक्कत है और ठीक करवाना जरुरी है। दुकान वाले ने बताया कि गाड़ी ठीक करने में आधा घंटा लग जायेगा। हम लोग आस-पास घुमते रहे और पहाड़ों की सुन्दरता को निहारते रहे। गाड़ी ठीक होने के बाद फिर से रुद्रप्रयाग की ओर चल दिये। सभी लोग काफ़ी थके हुए थे और रात को ठीक से सोये भी नहीं थे इसलिये सभी लोग गाड़ी में झपकियॉ लेते रहे । बाहर काफ़ी गर्मी हो रही थी और उसके कारण हमें गाड़ी में भी गर्मी लग रही थी। हमने ड्राईवर को बोल दिया कि रास्तें में कहीं भी झरना दिखे तो वहीं गाड़ी रोक देना, अब नहाना जरुरी हो गया है।

रुद्रप्रयाग से थोड़ा पहले ही एक झरना मिला और वहीँ ड्राईवर ने गाड़ी रोक दी और इससे पहले कि हम अपना सामान खोलकर कपड़े निकाल कर नहाने जाते , ड्राईवर जल्दी से नहाने चला गया और उसके आने के बाद गुप्ता जी को छोडकर ,हम सब लोग भी नहाने को चल दिये। गुप्ता जी की आँखों में दर्द था जो हेमकुन्ड आने के बाद से लगातार हो रहा था और जो शायद सुर्य की तीखी किरणों के बर्फ़ पर पड़ने के बाद निकलने वाली चमक के कारण था। ….”

We have an other announcement to make, maybe the last one for this edition of the Monthly Digest. Please put your hands together for Amitava Chatterjee – our Featured Author of the Month of April 2013. Amitava is a popular guy in our community. We are sure you all know him quite well. But our effort is to bring you more details about him. Watch out for his interview which will be published during the mid of April where Nandan will try to decipher more about him.

While all announcements and retrospection about the month that has gone by is done from our side, we also want to share with you something about what is happening in the World around us.
For now, the news is about Indian Union Budget for 2013-14 and tourism in particular. Good news is that Tourism gets Rs 88 crore more budget this year. These funds aim at improving the tourism infrastructure, for planning and developing schemes to improve tourism in North East etc.
Well, let us hope this translates to more traveling by people and more entries on GHumakkar!’

News courtersy: The Economic Times

The new comers, the Featured Authors of March and April along with the author of the Featured Story are all here on a single platform now. It is time you talk to them here, elsewhere or offline and get to know them more!
It is time for me to leave the forum to you all and sign off. We hope that this post brought you some good, quick look at the activities of March. We want to hear from you about what you like or dislike about us and/or our processes. Write to us at info@ghumakkar.com

Until next time, keep traveling and writing!
Cheers!