Ghumakkad Enters The Double Digit

Your blog, Ghumakkad's blog, turns ten today. Ghumakkad thus enters the double digit with lot of excitement and hope!

How did it start ?

Our set of eight stories on Bhutan, which is so picturesque, was the starting point. From a mere travel blog, Ghumakkad has transformed many folds. And we haven't looked back since then. First three years had only a handful of page views since it was a blog by invitation. Once we made it open, the growth has been overwhelming. See the graph below showing 258,000 page views.

Our Content

Over the years with the support of our readers, we have been able to broaden our content. Telling stories with pictures has been the format. However, the stories are no longer limited to travelogues. Here are few snapshots of our broad spectrum.

• Beating the Covid Gloom: We did more than a dozen stories to bring cheer into our Covid-affected life. We also shared real-life stories of two Covid-survivors of the 1st wave, one each in India and USA. Each story highlighted the power of positivity in those gloomy days. Some of the quick links are given below. 

I got a new life - A Corona Survivor's Tale

Take the Virus Head On - Survivor recipe from another Corona Warrior

Breaking Free In Lockdown

Bouncing Back In Lockdown

Every Day Is A Sunday

Stay Home Stay Safe

Lockdown Is ... Happiness

• Kaun Banega Ghumakkad (KBG): During the Covid-dominated period, KBG online contests have been very engaging and educative. It provided the much needed diversion from gloomy news and charts of Covid. After the first 50 editions of KBG, which posed a question to the readers (to name a plant, tree, insect, fort or a flower), next 23 editions instead asked the readers to give a caption to a picture. The readers creativity in suggesting the captions was overwhelming. Some of the contests which were well contested are An Arch to Captivate You, Lazy Lions, Mutualism by Nature. We will soon be celebrating the 75th edition of KBG. 

• Guest Stories: Ghumakkad always encourages the readers to contribute guest stories for our blog. Rohini Tiwari's story 'A Squirrel Comes Home' has been read by more than 600 readers!

• Bird Rescue: Read how few bird lovers in Secunderabad rescued a Black-Winged Stilt injured by the kite thread manjha.

The manjha spares no one. Few years back, we had rescued a fruit bat injured by the manjha. You may browse the story 'Rescuing an Injured Bat'.

• Nature: Nature continues to inspire Ghumakkad. Can a tree or a plant be your valentine? Or birds and animals? Or insects, bees, butterflies and moths? Yes, why not? Stories like Nature as Valentine and deriving Inspiration from a Butterfly were appreciated by scores of readers. 

• Saluting the Veterans: Our story '50th Year of 1971 War' which featured Naval children besides the Veterans, showcased the motivation of the younger generation.

• Lesser Known India: Though our physical travel was severely curtailed during last two years due to Covid, we did manage to feature two destinations, one each in Telangana and Rajasthan. Read the story 'Devarakonda- The Fort Which Needs Your Support' which highlights the efforts of local community in restoring a 800-year old fort. 

We had featured the Havelis of Khichan Rajasthan in the announcement of Winners of KBG-28. Khichan has some incredibly sculpted Havelis made of red sandstone. Glimpses. 

Learning Together:  In keeping with Ghumakkad's motto of learning together, we believe in sharing our knowledge and experiences. We had conducted a 'live' case study based on Hindi feature film 'Shershaah' last year. Our story 'Shershaah- Beyond The Movie' evoked keen response form not only MBA students but also the faculty members.

Through the movie, we could bring out lessons on 20 different aspects of OB, HRM and Strategic Management.

Most Read Stories

Taking stock on 10th anniversary of the blog, our most-read story continues to be the tribute to a fellow BITSian who gave his life fighting the terrorists in J&K 25 years ago. We salute Capt Ravi Shankar for the supreme sacrifice. Do browse the story 'An Immortal BITSian', if you haven't read it so far. 

The table below lists other most-read stories from our blog during the last ten years. Apart from the stories related to my alma-mater BITS Pilani, it is heartening to that readers have liked the story on Brahma Kamal the Night Queen highlighting one of the Nature's many miracles.

Our blog's readership is not confined to India. As shown in the map below, more than 45% of our readers come from countries across the globe. We thank each and every reader.

For a snapshot of our first eight years as a blog, do browse our story 'Ghumakkad is Eight'.

Moving On

With the Covid restrictions being lifted, Ghumakkad hopes to resume our travels and bring you more stories. Do share your pictures and stories through our blog.

Acknowledgements

There are numerous people who have helped us grow. Some of them had been acknowledged in our 6th Anniversary post. In addition, 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

Anchita Nidhindra, Manik Srivastava, Joyshree Banerjee and Akanksha for being the KBG Jury members

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.

We are reminded of an ad for chocolates which said 'Never too old for a chocolate'. Ghumakkad started blogging at sixty. So folks 'never too old to start blogging!'

    -   Harsh-the-Ghumakkad with Neeta Bhargava/ 13th May 2022

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Rescuing an injured Bat

Rescuing an injured Bat

This morning Neeta and I helped in rescuing an injured bat.

It was during the morning walk at Secunderabad Club, when I noticed something struggling to crawl around a tree bark. Going closer I realised it was a bat which had got stuck in the strings used for kite flying. In an effort to untangle itself, the bat had got stuck further in the web made out of the string. It had woven itself around the bark of the tree. I tried breaking the string with bare hands. But it would not. Then I rubbed it against the bark and it worked! The bat could now move around the bark. See the picture (luckily I had the camera in the car which I had brought along to shoot 'rain drops'). Bats always like it upside down! Even when injured!

 Now the bat was unshackled from the tree but still stuck in the maze of strings wound tightly across its wings, neck and wing tips. Closer scrutiny revealed that it had cuts/wounds on the wing tip using which it gets a hold on the tree, its neck and one ear lobe. You can see the blood on its ear lobe. 

Its eyes tried to say ‘Please help me!’ Don’t you get the same feeling? How could I abandon it in that condition?

By now Neeta had also joined me after her Yoga session. To our bad luck, she hadn’t brought her bag which generally has a pair of scissors. We needed it to cut all the strings around the bat so that it could be free. The nearest first aid box at the Badminton court had no scissors. However, one of the ball boys fetched a pair of scissors. I used it to trim the strings which had formed a cage for the bat. While doing so, the bat lost its grip on the bark and fell to the ground. It then started to crawl across the road, still tangled in its web of strings.

Neeta had a brilliant idea. Why not cover its eyes with a hand towel? Perhaps then we would be able to hold its body and cut all the strings free. For a moment it worked. But the next moment, the bat set itself free of the towel mask and caught Neeta’s sandals. She shrieked and set herself free. By now some more onlookers and security guards had arrived.

One of the guards D Gogoi then offered to help. He caught the bat by its neck and another guard then took the scissors to quickly cut off the maze. We could hear its shrill shrieks which we otherwise hear at night. The bat was now free but badly injured. So much so that it could not fly. 

We then took it to a nearby tree and made it climb the bark—safe beyond the reach of dogs and cats! Hopefully, it would recover and regain strength to fly again. May be its mate would look for it in the night!

We all heaved a sigh of relief having saved a fellow creature on our lovely planet!

But the next time you lose your kite, please recover the string. Before it hurts and kills another bat!

__________________________________________________________

BITS Dubai-- Another Oasis in the desert

All of us owe a lot to our alma-mater. My engineering school, BITS, Pilani was established as Birla Engineering College in the dusty village of Pilani, Rajasthan, India. It became a deemed university in 1964 and was rechristened as BIrla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS). BITS is a global brand with its alumni excelling in many fields worldwide.
BITS Pilani opened its first overseas campus in Dubai in 2000 in a rented premises. It moved to its own campus in 2009.
Last week on 16th July, 2012, Anand Jain and Harsh Bhargava, both alumni of BITS Pilani (1968-73) visited the Dubai campus. Although it was the summer break, yet the campus had its charm! The main foyer, class rooms, labs, trophy cupboards, honours board, hostel blocks, cafeteria-- all of it brought us nostalgia.
Here is a pictures story. Enjoy!
Your impressions are welcome.

 Thanks for your time.
Look forward to your suggestions!

Postscript: 31st August 2016- Prof RN Saha is currently the Director (see the picture below). BITS Pilani Dubai Campus (BPDC) will host BGM-2017 i.e. BITS Alumni Global Meet 5-7th Jan 2017.

Another Postscript: Ghumakkad attended BGM-17 at Dubai. You can browse the story of the BGM with few video clips here.

  Harsh