Friday 25 May 2018

Ghumakkad Turns Six

Hurray, your own blog turns Six today!
Time for gratitude to each one of you for browsing our posts.
Time to look back.
And time to chart the course ahead.

The year that was
Highlight of the year ending 25th May 2018 was a series of stories under the banner 'Proof of the Pudding'. It showcased Ghumakkad's former students who have now become entrepreneurs.They have chosen diverse fields and their stories are inspiring indeed. These stories have collectively logged more than 8000 page views.

Name
MBA Graduation
Business Area
Venture Name & Location
MBA(HR) IBS(2010)
Career Coaching
HRscope Consultants, Patna
MBA(HR) IBS (2010)
Entertainment/ Theatre and Performing Arts
XpressionZ, Bangalore
MBA(Mktg) IBS (2012)
Image Consultant, Corporate Trainer
Tualmagis, Mumbai
MBA(Fin) IBS (2012)
Designer Soaps- manufacture and supply
Soapatite, Indore
MBA(Mktg) IBS(2013)
Designer Apparels and Accessories
Preksha Jain – The Fashionate, Kolkata
BBA IBS(2013)
Healthy Mother, Healthy Baby
ILove9Months, Kochi
BBA IBS(2013)
A Gourmet Dessert Studio
17 Sugar Street, Hyderabad
MBA(HR) VVISM(2016)
Employability Skills Training
Digi Freaks,Hyderabad
PGDM(Fin) VVISM (2016)
Digital Marketing, Web/App Development
Aresol India, Visakhapatnam

During this period we also posted two guest stories which were appreciated by the readers. The first guest story titled 'Fallen but not Forgotten' was contributed by Trixie Asirvatham from Bangalore. It was a vivid account of a memorial service for WW-I martyrs.
The second guest story titled 'Male Showstopper' by Koushik Gopinath from Mumbai brought alive his brush with the tigers of Ranthambore in Rajasthan.
Another story which caught the fancy of the readers was 'Hand-me-Ups'. Ghumakkad shared his joy of wearing the shoes handed-me-Up by his grandson. Have you received any hand-me-up so far?

The joy of giving-- has been the theme of the alumni of BITS Pilani 1970-75 batch. Their noble act of  Guru Dakshina गुरु दक्षिणा - honouring and felicitating their former teachers even after 42 years, is noteworthy. Their story crossed 1000 page views. BITS Pilani is Ghumakkad's alma-mater.
In the travel section, our story 'Marvel in Marble' had 700 readers browsing it. It brought out the glory of Ranakpur temple in Rajasthan.

Which is the other marble structure known world over? Yes, the Taj Mahal in Agra! Our story 'Taj@Dawn' was appreciated by many readers.


Ghumakkad is also a teacher. 'Who Inspires a Teacher'- this story on Teacher's Day 2017 touched the hearts of another 600 readers- fellow teachers, students and former students alike!


All of us love our old school, college or the university. 'What has Changed in Pilani'- Ghumakkad's story brought nostalgia to 2600 readers-- mostly BITSians perhaps!


The Picturesque Quotes- PQ series continue to ignite the readers. One of the PQs posted during last 12 months:

No one likes to write an obituary. But we keep losing people in our lives. India lost its eminent scientist, thinker and institution builder Dr PM Bhargava on 1st August 2017. You may browse Ghumakkad's tribute to him  'World of Science loses a Crusader'.


When Ghumakkad turned Five 
For those who missed browsing, we reproduce below the story when we turned five last year on 25th May 2017. It gives a snapshot of each of the sections of our blog namely Travel, Wildlife, Environment, Teaching, PQs, Obituaries, Books, Reunions, Fitness and Poems during 2012 to 2017.
_________________________ 

Ghumakkad turns Five

Ghumakkad's blog-- your own blog-- completes five years on 25th May 2017. It is each one of you who has helped us sustain this exciting journey. A journey of exploration, adventure, thrill and discovery. When we started off, we never knew we would reach out to so many netizens. With just 234 page views in first 12 months in 2012-13, your blog has now crossed 92,500 page views. 

It took three years when 'Ghumakkad crossed 25,000 mark'.
But it took just one more year to reach the 50,000 milestone. And the next 42,5000 page views came in this year taking the count to 92,500! Credit for achieving this landmark goes to each of you.

Numbers don't matter. What gives us a kick is when someone travels all the way to Port Blair or Africa based on our picture stories and gives us a pat on our back! We feel humbled in adding happiness to your lives.

Over last five years, you have liked and appreciated more than 6000 photographs in this blog taken around the world--spread over 230 posts with 30 embedded videos.

Of course, the journey continues. As we said earlier, 92K page views in cyber world is no big deal. But for a non-commercial, non-political, non-religious and non-celebrity blog it means a lot. It is truly a humbling experience for me. 

Credits: Many readers have given regular feedback to enrich the blog. Please allow Ghumakkad to mention few regular readers (please pardon us for omissions if any!):


(Late)Manorama Bhargava
PSP Sarma (Octogenarian)
Trixie Asirvatham
BD Bhargava(Octogenarian)
N Sridhar
Pramod-Helga Lakhotia
Umesh Dhyani
Pramila and Mani Thomas
Rajendra Singh
Sunil Sud
M Sitaram
Manasi Panigrahi
Aditya Jain
R Raghuram
MV Vasudevan
Suchitra Chowdhury
Raj K Mehta
Vinod Dhanuka
Avinash Tiwari
Supradeep Sen
Pradeep Mohan
Ashok Kota
Masthanaiah Aluru
Arun Dhupar
A Ramnath
Vivek Chawla
TJ Master
BU Vuppala
Lakshmi and NR Ravi
RB Dhavare
Vinay Prasad
PG Bhat
K Gopu
Parag Sharma
Anand and Farida Jain
Kirti Sharma
JA Rama Moorty
Kingshuk Nag
Brijesh Kalra
GR Nair
Swati-Swayam Mishra
Vasu Iyer
BK Nagaraj
Pradeep Siwach
C Raghuram and many more

Credits are also due to: CD Sawant,  RRN Chowdary, Deepti Thakur, A Mohandas, S Rammohan, LV Mohandas, S Santhanam, AVS Madhav Rao, S Raghavan, Sangeeta Agarwal, V Ramachandran, Chaitanya Shiroor, Vijay Bal, Umesh Kumar and the entire Bhargava clan spread  around the world. 

Time for a quick recap. Our first story five years ago was titled 'Exploring Bhutan Part-1: The Team'

We started off as a travelogueChange is part of our life and soon other subjects got added. The flavour of the blog has thus changed. We invite you to sample some of the stories spanning various aspects of our life. You may click to browse any of the posts hyper-linked in parenthesis:


































You can also search within the blog for any topic of your interest.
Once again we would like to thank each one of you for your continued support  and encouragement. Ghumakkad hopes to bring you more pictures, more stories and more insights into our life.

Hope you enjoy the blog as much as we do creating the stories for you.
Thanks for browsing and being part of our exciting journey.

   - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad with Neeta Bhargava/ 25th May 2017/ hbindia@gmail.com 
__________________________________________________ 

 As we have always said, for a non-political, non-religious, non-commercial and non-celebrity blog like ours, every reader counts. Numbers like 135,000 page views (our current count) are minuscule in the web world. What matters is bringing joy to your life. After reading the obituary of our dog Elfo, so many readers shared their own grief when they had lost their dog. Similarly, after reading the entrepreneurial journey of ten of my students, many readers felt inspired. Numbers don't matter, your smiles and appreciation do. 

Is it a coincidence that we had exactly 42,500 page views during each of the two preceding years? Talk of consistency! Or is it the theory of marginal utility showing up? Again, for us numbers don't matter, your connection does! Stay connected.

Once again, thank you for being part of this exciting journey. You have made Ghumakkad what it is today!

     -Harsh-the-Ghumakkad with Neeta Bhargava/ 25th May 2018

#GhumakkadHarsh #GhumakkadHB #SixthAnniversary #BlogAnniversary #HarshBhargava #ThrillOfWriting #JourneyOfLife #BringingSmiles 

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