Windows and Wanderings - Ghumakkad Turns Fourteen

 When your blog turns fourteen, how do you celebrate?

You celebrate by thanking the readers and contributors.  Because it is the readers who have taken the blog where it is. Thank you all.

Ghumakkad continues to wander.

Why do you like Ghumakkad's Blog?

Ghumakkad asked the readers a simple question 'Why do you like Ghumakkad's blog?' Within minutes we started  receiving responses. We have tried to summarise and include as many in the table below.

Reader(s)	Why I/we like Ghumakkad's Blog
KS Venugopal, Amandeep Kaur	A window to the world
Gyan Agarwal	It has a soul.
Lakshmi and NR Ravi, Vijay Uppal, Sharad Kumar, Daleep George,  TSR Swamy, Pramod Goel,  SVS Chary, Anju Tiwari, Surendra B,  Zafar Naseem, Ramya Champion, Vinay Prasad, Premila Basu,  PR Sangam, Vinod Dhanuka,  Pramod Lakhotia, Rachita Mahajan, Nishi and Ashok Jaitly, Mohan Swaminathan, Mani Thomas	Armchair travelogue of unseen and unheard off places. Feels like a 'live' tour with a ringside seat!
Ruma Purkayastha, Rashmi B, Indira Susheel Kumar,	Stories that leave you with the desire to experience and explore
Raman Kumar, BC Jayaprakash, Ruchi B, Vardhaman Tantia,  Poonam B, Joya Ganguly, Vijay Bal, RB Dhavare, Satish Kwatra	Wide variety, depth of research and simple language
Joyshree Banerjee, Dr Pappu, Praveen Garg, Chandreyee Ganguly, Helga Lakhotia	Makes us feel part of Ghuamkkad's trips!
N Sridhar, Pimmo Lodha	It gives me joy
Dr GB Sethi, Rakesh Bajaj, Tejaswini, Chanda Golani	It's uniqueness and educational value
Vinod Agarwal, Pramila B, Seema Jain, Suresh Sharma, Arun Dhupar	Meaningful and vivid descriptions that leave the reader asking for more
Suchitra Chauduri, M Vasudevan, Nitin Dhavare, Sharat Choudary, Mukul B, Shereen Sultana, Rajat B, Chaitanya Shiroor	Insightful, refreshing, authentic and deeply inspiring
Trixie Asirvatham, Shyamola Khanna, Dr Surekha Bhanot	Stunning illustrations and narratives
Pradeep Sethi	Love the small things that you notice!
Dilip Mohapatra, Krishna Prasad, Yella Prakash Rao, Raj K Mehta	Spreads goodwill, empathy and positive thinking.
Manik Srivastava	Your art of storytelling!
Vinay B, Rajinder Singh, GR Nair	Passion with which every story is created.
Padma Ramesh	It inspires wanderlust!
Deepak Jena	It keeps me in touch with my Professor!
Jaishankar	Stories that lie at the junction of adventure, curiosity and wisdom.
Dr Rohini Tiwari	My most exciting virtual travel companion and storyteller!

Am humbled seeing your responses. Ghumakkad seems to have made a wide impact as visible from the variety of responses. Each one of you (and many others not included in the above list) deserve the special badge of appreciation. Thanks once again.

Ghumakkad exists because of you

It took 13 years to reach 6 lakh page views. But, we have added 5 lakh page views in just one year! See the graph below.

Sharing below an excerpt from Amandeep Kaur, my former MBA student now settled in Canada.

"Ghumakkad has been far more than a travel blog to me, it has been a window to the world. 

What makes Ghumakkad special is not just the journeys, but the soul behind them. Your writing carries warmth, curiosity, wisdom, and that quiet humor which makes readers feel like fellow travellers rather than just an audience.

As your student, I admired you in the classroom. As a reader, I have admired the way you turn travel into stories that stay with people long after they finish reading. Fourteen years later, Ghumakkad still inspires people to dream, explore, and look at the world with kinder eyes. That is a rare gift."

------------- 

Thank you Amandeep aka Ammu.

Another regular reader Admiral C Raghuram has sent a short poem on Ghumakkad's 14th Anniversary.

"Your footsteps frame each place with light and rhyme,  
You lift small wonders into song, one gentle chime.

  
Through winding lanes and hush of hills you roam,  
Each travelogue a tender bridge that leads us home

.  
You open doors where hidden mornings gleam and play,  
You turn plain paths to honeyed tracks where memories stay. 

 
Fourteen years your roaming words have charmed the way,  
Forever may your stories lead our hearts, and gently stay."

----------------- 

Thank you Admiral.

Special thanks are also due to all the Guest Story writers listed below along with links to their stories:

Ansh and Nikhil (then 14 and 11): Why Kodaikanal?

Abha and Akanksha: Ladakh: Shades of Heaven on Earth

Ankush: Maya The Tigress of Tadoba

Koushik Gopinath: Male Showstopper - Tigers of Ranthambhore

Abhishek Singh: Winning The Hearts Of People

Akanksha: Women Hiking In Water

Dr Rohini Tiwari: A Squirrel Comes Home

Trixie Asirvatham: Fallen But Not Forgotten

Ankush: Ironman In The Family

Nikhil (then 10 years old): Coyote Gulch- Hiking In A Stream

Sachi (then 15), Syon (13) and Maana (11): Who Says Children Don't Read Books

Naman (then 8 years old): Sketching at Eight

Ankush: 2nd Time ironman ki Kahani Ankush ki Zubani

Mohili and Kabir: Hiking With Two Middle Schoolers

Padma Ramesh: Who Says Adventure Has an Age Limit?

Tushar Bhakay: Birding on a Bicycle

Debashish Mukherjee: Call of the Road - Curiosity, Discovery and Joy

Padma Ramesh: There is Magic in the Air When They Meet -- An account of a Navy Veterans' Reunion

Would you like to see your name in above list? Then share your guest story. We would love to publish it.

Those who wish to browse across the spectrum of our picture stories, may click the link below:

Ghumakkad Enters the Teens - Gives a snapshot of our stories of last 13 years.

Be it the travelogues, environment, wildlife, birds, life lessons from Nature, obituaries or simple observations around our lives-- you have loved it all.

All we would say-- Gratitude with folded hands.

Last but not the least we have to thank our advisors over the years:

Trixie Asirvatham (Blog content)
Dr Chitra Shanker (Environment)
Yella Prakash Rao (Birding)

Thanks for browsing and stay connected. Do share a comment and/or your guest story as and when you can.

    -  Harsh-the-Ghumakkad/ Secunderabad/ 22nd May 2026

#14thAnniversary #travlandlifeblog #GhumakkadIsFourteen #WindowsAndWanderings #gratitude #thankyoureaders #OneMillionPageViews #ghumakkadharsh #ghumakkadhb #GuestStory #explore #discovery #adventure #joyofsharing #powerofobservation #appreciationbadge #blogreadership

Ghumakkad Enters The Teens

Celebration time again. Ghumakkad's blog, your blog, is thirteen! Ghumakkad too is thirteen but with sixty years of wandering around!

Ghumakkad expresses his gratitude to each one of you for this exciting journey together. Like all life on earth, we the human beings are also dependent upon Nature. Ghumakkad too loves Nature. And that is why my tagline on Insta says  'Forever at Peace Outdoors'. Nature is amazing as well as mysterious. A lifetime is not enough to fathom Nature's mysteries like the picture below. The khoj खोज meaning 'the quest' continues.

With the support of our readers worldwide, we have crossed the milestone of half-a-million page views this year. In fact the count now reads 603,000 page views! Eight years ago when we crossed the 100,000 mark, Radhika Sareen one of our regular readers had commented 'You will soon cross a Million mark!' It did not seem attainable becuse it had taken us five years to reach 100,000. A ten-fold growth meant another 50 years. Not in my life time I thought! But now it seems we are getting there! It is the magic created and continued by the readers!

As we said earlier, numbers don't matter for our blog. Being a non-political, non-religious, non-commercial, non-celebrity blog it has limited readership. We are happy with the readers that we have. Your insights and encouragement keeps us going. In fact our readers have been contributing many guest stories to our blog, your blog.

When Fallen, Get Up and Go

This year Ghumakkad lost his travel companion (and life partner too). But Ghumakkad is trying to retain the spirit of the blog. The posts may have been fewer but the show has gone on. Sharing below the post dedicated to Neeta with eulogies from her near and dear ones.

We Will Miss You Forever 

Last year we had shared a snapshot of our content and its variety. We are re-posting it with suitable uodates. Read on.

The Journey

Ghumakkad started as a travel blog. Our inaugural story was a set of eight posts on picturesque Bhutan. Initially the blog was by invitation. Naturally it had very limited page views in the first three years. Once opened to public, more readers enjoyed browsing it. See the graph below which shows the current page views at 603,000 with more than 5600 comments. This is the 643rd Post of our blog.

As we mentioned, last year saw an increase of 153,000 page views as shown in the graph below.

The Content

Our blog has a variety of content with pictures and videos. Some of the themes are listed below with links to connected stories:

• Travelogues like Huka Falls Taupo New Zealand,  A Train journey in USA, Scuba diving at 65, Hiking up the Tiger's Nest in Bhutan, Toddler on a Hike, Veterans Bash In A Train

• Wildlife including The Big Five of Africa, Tigers of Tadoba, Birds of Ranganathittu, Rescuing a Black Winged Stilt, Lakshmi The Tigress Teacher, Ajgar Dadar Preserving the Pythons

• Environment including Trees (Cherry Blossom Nature's Revival, White Jamun?, Neem Trees Under Attack), plants (Friendship With Plants), insects and flowers (Brahma Kamal)

• Online Contest called Kaun Banega Ghumakkad which has completed 80 editions so far! It is though temporarily suspended.
• Lesser-known India series Tunnel Tourism, Belum Caves, Hindola Toran, Devarakonda Fort and more

• Entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship stories like Dreams to Reality, Young Entrepreneurs Bootcamp, Startup Fever Grips VVISM

• Teaching and learning (Ghumakkad is a teacher!) Jeevan Vidya Workshop- A Journey Within,  Yoga Mat With A Bandage, Implementing NEP-2020, real-life case studies and Innovations in A Convocation

• Obituaries of leaders like Ratan Tata,  Dr Abdul Kalam and martyrs like Capt Ravi Shankar

• Motivational posts like This Time of the Year and more during Covid

• Guest stories including those written by our grandchildren (Coyote Gulch Hiking in Stream), Covid survivors (I Got A New Life) and Animal Lovers like Rohini

• Picturesque Quotes having one of our pictures with a famous quote like Claude Monet on Nature and another one by a KBG winner.

• Adventure and Endurance like Ankush Does It The Ironman, Women Hiking in Water

The Readership

Thanks to the wider reach of internet, our blog is read globally. Readers from India account for only 45%, balance coming from across the globe. See the colour coded world map below.

Most Viewed Posts (All time)

Our story on 'Brahma Kamal The Queen of Night' has been read by almost 8000 readers. It shows the readers' interest in environment and Nature related posts.

Capt Ravi Shankar's life story has been read more than 7770 times. We salute his supreme sacrifice

.

See the list of most viewed posts below.

Most viewed posts during the last 12 months are shown below. Our readers have shown a wide preference for the blog posts.

Acknowledgements

There are numerous people who have helped us grow. We place on record our appreciation to the following for their unstinted support.

Trixie Asirvatham our content advisor

Chitra Shanker our advisor on plants, trees, insects and birds

Ramya Sriram logo designer of our KBG Contest

Yella Prakash Rao our ornithologist

We also thank each one of you for your continued support without which Ghumakkad wouldn't have been here! Do give us your feedback to help us improve.

Onwards to the 14th Anniversary of Ghumakkad next year!

Thanks for browsing. Stay connected

   - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad / 21st May 2025/ Secunderabad

#GhumakkadHarsh #GhumakkadHB #13thAnniversary #BlogAnniversary #ThrillOfWriting #JourneyOfLife #BringingSmiles #makingadifference #kbgcontest #kaunbanegaghumakkad #wellness #motivation #inspiration #positivity #nature #environment #teachers #learning #india #mysteriesofnature #travelforfun #wildlife #keepgoing #blogger #pictures #photowalks #powerofobservation #students #adventure #lesserknownindia #PQs #picturesquequotes #learningtogether #mangroves #adventure #IronMan #NewZealand #neetabhargava #lifeafterdeath

Ghumakkad Turns Twelve!

Hurray 12th Birthday! Not mine, though I wish it was! Ghumakkad, your blog, completes 12 years.

Rooted in Nature, Ghumakkad would like to express our gratitude to you for continued readership and feedback. The picture below shot in Pichavaram Mangroves in Tamil Nadu last week, shows the mangroves up close. Like the roots of the mangroves, Ghumakkad's blog is rooted to each one of you who give us energy and encouragement. 

Last 12 months saw a phenomenal jump in the page views from 291,000 to 450,000! Wonder if we can expect similar growth this year! It is the magic created by the readers!

Last year we had shared a snapshot of our content and its variety. We are re-posting it to save our effort. We have added a list of posts most viewed in last 12 months. Read on.

The Journey

Ghumakkad started as a travel blog. Our inaugural story was a set of eight posts on picturesque Bhutan. Initially the blog was by invitation . Naturally it had very limited page views in the first three years. Once opened to public, more readers enjoyed browsing it. See the graph below which shows the current page views at 450,000 with more than 4660 comments. This is the 612nd Post of our blog.

As we mentioned, last 12 months had more than 160,000 page views. See the graph below.

The Content

Our blog has a variety of content with pictures. Some of the themes are listed below with links to connected stories:

• Travelogues like A Train journey in USA, Scuba diving at 65, Hiking up the Tiger's Nest in Bhutan, Toddler on a Hike

• Wildlife including The Big Five of Africa, Tigers of Tadoba, Birds of Ranganathittu, Rescuing a Black Winged Stilt

• Environment including Trees (White Jamun?, Neem Trees Under Attack), plants (Friendship With Plants), insects and flowers (Brahma Kamal)

• Online Contest called Kaun Banega Ghumakkad which has completed 80 editions so far!
• Lesser-known India series Hindola Toran, Devarakonda Fort and more

• Entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship stories like Dreams to Reality, Young Entrepreneurs Bootcamp, Startup Fever Grips VVISM

• Teaching and learning (Ghumakkad is a teacher!) including real-life case studies and Innovations in A Convocation

• Obituaries of leaders like Dr Abdul Kalam and martyrs like Capt Ravi Shankar

• Motivational posts specially during Covid

• Guest stories including those written by the children (Coyote Gulch Hiking in Stream), Covid survivors (I Got A New Life) and Animal Lovers like Rohini

• Picturesque Quotes having one of our pictures with a famous quote like Claude Monet on Nature and another one by a KBG winner.

• Adventure and Endurance like An Ironman in the Family, Women Hiking in Water

The Readership

Thanks to the wider reach of internet, our blog is read globally. Readers from India account for only 45%, balance coming from across the globe. See the colour coded world map below.

Most Viewed Posts (All time)

Capt Ravi Shankar's life story has been read more than 7690 times. We salute his supreme sacrifice

.

Another story on 'Brahma Kamal The Queen of Night' has been read by more than 6810 readers. It shows the readers' interest in environment and Nature related posts.

Most viewed posts during the last 12 months are shown below. Once again, our readers showed their preference for Nature-related posts.

Acknowledgements

There are numerous people who have helped us grow. We place on record our appreciation to the following for their unstinted support.

Trixie Asirvatham our content advisor

Chitra Shanker our advisor on plants, trees, insects and birds

Ramya Sriram logo designer of our KBG Contest

We also thank each one of you for your continued support without which Ghumakkad wouldn't have been here! Do give us your feedback to help us improve.

Onwards to the 13th Anniversary of Ghumakkad next year!

Thanks for browsing. Stay connected

   - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad with Neeta Bhargava/ 23rd May 2024/ Chennai

#GhumakkadHarsh #GhumakkadHB #12thAnniversary #BlogAnniversary #ThrillOfWriting #JourneyOfLife #BringingSmiles #makingadifference #kbgcontest #kaunbanegaghumakkad #wellness #motivation #inspiration #positivity #nature #environment #teachers #learning #india #mysteriesofnature #travelforfun #wildlife #keepgoing #blogger #pictures #photowalks #powerofobservation #students #adventure #lesserknownindia #PQs #picturesquequotes #learningtogether #mangroves