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."

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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."

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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

The 100,000 Mark

Time to say thanks again!
Before we could realise, Ghumakkad- your blog- has crossed the 100,000 page views mark! No big deal in cyber world. But big deal for us because we are non-political, non-religious, non-celebrity, non-commercial! We create happiness in readers' lives- or so they say!

Thanks for being the key part in this exciting journey of  discovery and learning! 'Learning together' is Ghumakkad's motto as evident from his logo.

What started as a travelogue-sharing platform five years ago, now has  a wider flavour. Reproducing the canvas of our blog from our 5th Anniversary post two months ago.
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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:

• Travel (Bhutan-Thimpu and beyond, Munnar-Kerala, What's new in Goa, Changing face of Jaipur, USA-Casinos, USA-Camping)

• Wildlife (Africa- The Big Five, Tigress of Tadoba, Birds of Ranganathittu, Ranthambhor Tigers)

• Environment (Port Blair Flora and fauna, Friendly Munias,Rescuing an injured Bat, Learning from Caterpillars)

• Learning and teaching (Plants and Leadership, Bringing realism in the classroom, Social Entrepreneurship, Learning from students, Life beyond an ECG)

• Picturesque Quotes (PQs) (Rose petals and Life, Nature,Darkness, Patience)

• Obituaries (Dr Abdul Kalam, Kushwant Singh, Elfo our dog)

• Books by Ghumakkad (BITS of Success)

• Reunions (Navy, College-BITS, Campus BITS Goa)

• Fitness (Yoga and life partner, Grandpa's Gym, Why Golf,Hiking, Scuba Diving at 65)

• Poems (Ansh enters the Teens, So what if I can not see, Our Little Princess is three)

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.

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Hope you enjoy the blog as much as we do creating the stories for you. Your feedback helps us improve. We close with Leigh Humt's classic quote on Nature (plase pardon Ghumakkad's obsession with Nature and its marvels!) in this PQ:

Once again, thanks for being part of this exciting journey of discovery and learning together.

       - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad/ 25th July 2017

Dance is Discovery

Dance is such a creative medium.
Last night while watching a performance by noted Bharatanatyam exponent Ms Rajeshwari Sainath in Secunderabad, I took some pictures.
The picture below of her disciple daughter Vyshnavi triggered the next  post on PQ series--the Picturesque Quotes. How do you like this PQ?

More pictures of the performance in next post.

Just in case you have missed out on earlier PQs, click on the links below:

Nature teaches us .. 

Humility 

Rose petals and life 

Thanks for browsing and for your feedback.

    -Harsh-the-Ghumakkad/ 23rd Feb 2015