Greetings to all my dear readers!
I remember how in our previous edition of the monthly digest post we cherished the sweetness of monsoons and the pleasant showers across the nation. About how I merried in the rain and how much each of us love about the freshness of this weather. In one month’s time, I think our opinions have changed drastically, don’t you think? Well, let us discuss this in the later part of our post. Until we reach there, let me brief you up about the good things we witnessed this month @ Ghumakkar.
As always, a fabulous and promising month June was. No disappointments at all about the trend that continues adding more precious posts to our baggy. Flawless description about some of the most exciting places in India and abroad, involving experiences and mesmerizing narration by most of our authors. I must say, our community is growing strong by the day and mature through time. Great work authors!
There is something special that Ghumakkar has to offer. It is the definite and continuous support and encouragement to the newbies. Our profound authors and the editorial team are more than happy to welcome more and more authors to the group.
Kiran
New author introduction is done. Now what? Some news from inside the team! We have been thinking on bringing a new format called “Ghumakkar Guide”. It will focus on one destination per post and talk about it in full length. It would also borrow content, links and pictures from posts written by our authors together with other relevant information. Does it sound good? We really want to hear from you about your opinion and feedback.
Most often, when we have announcements to make or information to share, we do it through our Monthly Digest post or through Facebook on our Facebook page.’Ghumakkari‘ needs to be spread for the greater good of traveling. So, all you Facebook fans out there, please take some time off and recommend our page within your groups. A matter of pride to mention is that our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/ghumakkar) has more than 75000 likes and we are still growing. We will definitely need your co-operation to share our travel info to more and more people!
When I think of co-operation from within our community, the thing that comes immediately to my mind is how all of you stood by us through tough times during this year start (February month, to be precise). We faced a lot of outages and server issues and emerged out successful in fighting all those troubles. As of now, you should see the site loading faster. However, if you still feel that you are getting messages like ‘Error in DataBase Connection’, then please let us know!
The publishing slots at Ghumakkar have been revised a bit. The evening slot is pulled up by 2 hours and now the available slots are :0400 hrs, 1200 hrs and 1600 hrs respectively. The 1200 hrs slot is reserved for special Editorial use while the rest two are open for all. If you have any doubt about this or anything else, please write to us @ info@ghumakkar.com
Well, did I dump too many technical details here? Don’t mind it fellows. I want you all to be aware of what is going on @ Ghumakkar. Ok now. Let me bring to you some interesting details about the people @ Ghumakkar.
Abhee
I am sure you all know who Abheeruchi is. She is has been crowned the Featured Author of the Month of June ’13 title! Claps claps! Congratulations Abhee. You made it!
With a different flavor and style, Nandan interviewed Abhee and got to know a lot of untold things about Abhee. Am sure most of you have already read the interview post. For the benefit of others, here is a snippet of that:
Ghum: It’s been a while but do you remember those first few days at Ghumakkar?
Abhee: Yes, I do. You might be surprised by my date-memory.
Ghum: Go on, Abhee.
Abhee: Ok, It is a general saying that girls/ladies remember dates very clearly. So here is the detailing about my first few weeks of finding Ghumakkar.
Aug 28, 2012 – I found Ghumakkar.com and I had collected information from different posts.
Aug 31 – Sep 01, 2012 – We were at Rameswaram.
Sept 02, 2012 – I returned and in evening itself I had written my first post.
Sept 03, 2012 – Registration in Ghumakkar
Sept 5, 2012 – Send pictures as well the post for review. For next couple of days, there were a plethora of emails from Archana who helped me setup my profile and finally my post was scheduled.
Sept 12, 2012 – My first post got published.
Ghum: Wow. You beat every one of us on this. Have you watched this Amir Khan movie, ‘Dil Chahta hai’? You remind me of a lovable character called, ‘Time Table’….
Enjoying at Nainital
For further reading, click here.
Before making the next announcement about our Featured Story of the month, let me talk about ‘Ghumakkar Insights’. Our author Sushant Singhal has concluded his amazing series on photography skills. His posts have qualified as the Ghumakkar Insights post previously too. We will continue the tradition and award his last post on this series as this month’s Ghumakkar Insights post. Congratulations Sushant.
The post which is titled “Photography:Practical Tips and Tricks”, is a wise-man’s advise on using some simple yet effective tricks in order to capture some of the best and unique photographs. A snippet from this post is here for you:
Repetitive colours create a pattern of their own.
Getting up early i.e. before others, has often been very advantageous to me. Here I remember my Udaipur wanderings in early morning when my wife was either sleeping or simply disinterested in going out of hotel room at those hours. This way, I get entirely different kind of lighting, different aspect of city life which results in different pictures. Buildings, specially ancient monuments (forts and temples etc.) look great in early morning Sun. Moreover, instead of running here and there, I was wandering leisurely – having ample time to concentrate on photography.
The next title too is bagged by Sushant. So, this month’s Featured Story for the month of June 2013 is Sushant’s story on Mandu . Hearty congratulations Sushant! An extract from the post is given below:
संकरी सी उस सड़क पर तीन चार किमी चल कर हमें दूर से एक बुर्ज दिखाई देना शुरु हुआ। रास्ते में जो – जो भी ऐतिहासिक टाइप के भवन हमें दिखाई दे रहे थे, हम गाइड से पूछ रहे थे कि भई, इनको कब दिखाओगे? वह हमें लारे-लप्पे देता रहा कि लौटते हुए देखेंगे पर वापसी के समय हम और किसी मार्ग से वापिस लाये गये। चलो खैर, अल्टीमेटली हम उस भीमकाय भवन के निकट जा पहुंचे जो दूर से एक छोटा सा बुर्ज महसूस हो रहा था। वहां लिखा था – रानी रूपमती का महल ! वहां हमने थोड़ी देर तक इमली वाले ठेले पर इमली के रेट को लेकर बहस की। ये मांडू की विशेष इमली थी जिसके बारे में मुकेश ने बताया कि ये सिर्फ यहां मांडू की जलवायु का ही प्रताप है कि यहां ये इमली उगती है। मैं अपने जन्म से लेकर आज तक इमली के नाम पर अपने परचून वाले की दुकान पर जो इमली देखता आया हूं, वह तो छोटे – छोटे बीज होते हैं जिनके ऊपर कोकाकोला रंग की खटास चिपकी हुई होती है और बीज आपस में एक दूसरे से पेप्सी कलर के धागों से जुड़े रहते हैं।
After all the big announcements and recognitions, we come to that part of the post which we pushed to the last. Not with an intention of undermining the intensity of the event but to reserve a space for it where people really stop, read and evaluate the situation.
This is the part which talks about the mammoth monsoons in the northern parts of India.
Who doesn’t like rain? We all do. But mother nature had her own intention associated with it this time. Should we say the calamity @ Uttarakhand is an instance where nature is showing the mirror to us about what we have just done to ourselves? Is it time we ‘humans’ do things cautiously keeping in mind what our actions will give us back? What will our kids reap from our deeds? Calamity and a distressed life? Well, its is time we thought about it and did the best modification to our lifestyle and habits to promise a safe and secure future for the generations to come.
Have a read about the intensity, impact and devastation the floods in Uttarakhand has caused, by clicking this link.
Another month gone by and so many things that happened. What did you like most and what did you feel needs improvement from our end? Do let us know about it and we will do our best to raise our standard to your expectation.
We shall be back again, next month, with another fabulous edition of the Monthly Digest post. Until then…
Adios!