Ghumakkar's Diary

Kalavnatin in clouds, as we looked at it from Prabalgad I have been to Prabalgad twice, but for some reasons (reasonable/non-reasonable!) I couldn't write about it.  So, going easy way - I am re-posting a very comprehensive post written by my fellow trekker Kranti . Also, I will update the post soon with trekking route for Prabalgad, which you can use with your Navigation app to "easily" navigate to the Top, else "getting lost and finding the way" is still the Best Way :) Prabalgad - A beautiful Day Trek in Monsoons :  “Pahad chadne ki kya Jarurat hai?” – Mom “Tumhara beta pagal ho gaya hai” – Dad “Mama/Uncle you are damn cool, man” -  Nephews/Nieces “Gaadi se jaana, bike se nahi” – Loved ones “Pahad chadna mere liye sirf ek trek nahi balki ek nasha hai, meditation hai” – Me #filmy Okay, so with all of these above, finally started our much-awaited Trek to Prabalgad/Kalavantin. We have been planning for this trek for more than a week n...

Have you ever appreciated that visiting few places becomes a religion for you? Like, visiting that particular chae wala shop around the corner in Kolkata or that old movie theater that has stopped screening new movies in Old Delhi since a long time or that particular CCD in Lucknow where you had coffee with your soul mate? Nostalgic, isn't it! I find this theory true to our travelling too. Just a view of Vishwanath Temple of BHU, idling at Assi and Dashaswamedh Ghats of Banaras, trekking every year at Naneghat, bathing at Nagaon - Alibaug are the few of the travelling things that I do almost every year. The new entrant to this annual travelling pilgrimage list is Kas Plateau. Just like the last year we rode to this place again and were happier than ever. Trivia Kas (Kaas) Pathaar or Kaas Plateau is located in the Satara District, some 30 kilometers off NH-4 (now NH 48) towards West. Plateau is about 300 kilometers from Mumbai via NH-4 and 375km via NH 17. We took...

What I like most about the cities we live in is the places we generally not aware about. Like the case of one of its own kind Butterfly Park of Thane, which is at stone throw distance from my place and I came to knew about it a few months back only. Then there is this Pagoda – another one of its own kind – world renowned and still not known to many city dwellers. We visited this place to take pictures and let me confirm it, we were stoned by the colors and the mystical sky (check out the Photo Story at the bottom of the post) Located at Northern most corner of the Megacity of Mumbai, across the Gorai creek, Global Vipassana Pagoda is a meditation hall built out of gratitude to the Buddha, his teaching and the community of monks practicing his teaching ( Wikipedia ).  The Global   Vipassana Pagoda - HDR The Pagoda is also known for being built on the world's largest stone dome without any supporting pillars, at height of ~29 metres and external diameter 94.82-9...

Though I generally put disclaimer at the bottom of the post, this one needs it right now. I am putting watermark on the picture, but the art it is depicting is not created by me. All due thanks to the guys who made this nice - cartoon art - that I could capture and reproduce here. This was one satire we saw in Kala Ghoda Festival over the Noise Pollution. Loud speakers are agitating a tired ear and at far left corner there is white saint like  Ear that's meditating. Message is clear, isn't it? This is my entry to PADE Day 20 Theme of Cartoon . Right now I have this feeling that how much more I need to travel and shot to have a real diversified collection. Or, is it better to have a niche collection? A thought worth some precious time... This picture post is an Entry to PADE-2013, a month long  Photo-blog  event. To know more and participate, click  here  or  here . Check themes  here .  

Naneghat has been like an annual pilgrimage for me. So, when I planned for the ride and trek this year, I was sure I wouldn’t be blogging about it. But the way it turned out to be – I couldn’t resist jotting it down and share. On just a few days’ notice three Decide&Ride TM Bullet guys agreed for the ride and trek along with a colleague and my roommate. Plan was simple - Ride/ Food/ Trek/ Food/ Trek down/ Food/ Ride back. Itinerary included Heavy to moderate Rain and Fatigue with Directions, misdirection, lot of fresh pahadi water, scenery and slips. We started it at around 6 AM morning. It was raining since last evening, and when we started it was still raining. Josh took Ashutosh as pillion and Abhishek hoped on to my pillion seat, Sandy was to join us at Kalyan naka with Monty – who found his bull not ready for ride and had to cancel it ( though he rushed and did power-trek to meet us at top later ). Anyways, it was still raining when we met at Kalyan naka and left for N...

Another Indiblogger Meet within a week, a week rough enough to push someone to bed-rest . It was a so called weekend meet on Saturday, which never been a weekend to me, sponsored on adrenaline by the Tata Storme. Now, comes the eternal question – “to have an adventurous ride ( sorry Shaktiman for calling it a ride ) in the Mumbai town for the Meet – that could be ‘ not to be missed one ’ type of OR head to room, idle on the couch watching TV and take a much needed rest. I took the decision any machine- sane could have, went for the Meet at aptly named Chitrakoot Grounds, Andheri West. If it wouldn't have been Samir, I would have taken few lightyears to reach the place which though is well known in this part of town, can only be reached beating trafu*ked maze-like roads. Anyways, the Indiblogger TataStorme XtremeDriveBlogger’s Meet has already started by the time we reached the place. Interestingly BlogwatiG and many others too had their own part of struggle reaching ...

If it  wouldn't  been Highway, I would have been High another Way ~ Ghumakkar Only thing that I don’t like attaching my rides is the ‘ reasons ’, and satirically it has been ‘ those reasons ’ that inspired me to get on some of my best rides of the short Life I have lived till date. One such ride was the last week’s  month's Mumbai-Jaisalmer. Rides to Nagpur and Jaisalmer have been on my itinerary since a long time, owing to my Geologists friends being posted there. Though, Nagpur is still to be done, I went to Jaisalmer on just a week’s planning. A message to my broken-ride-hearts Watsapp Group ‘ Decide & Ride ’, two friends agreed for the trip and finally one of them got along. Ride This is was the first ride in many a sense. I was lonely, though not solo; no smartphone with me, no deliberate routing/mapping done, and a very limited blog-survey over the roads and places. Target was to ride those ~1100 km in 2days, Day 1 from Mumbai to Mehsana and Day ...

We have been planning to visit the winter guests of Mumbai for last few years. This year finally we could! Thanks to a bulleteer mate – Vikram Pai aka Untamed. We planned it on Whatsapp and visited Sewri Mudflats for a rendezvous with the guest birds – Flamingos. Walking Flamingos at Sewri Mudflats Scientifically, these are Lesser Flamingos or Phoenicopterusminor , the smallest species of flamingo. It mainly occurs in Sub-Saharan deserts and Runn of Kutch. Annually, thousands of Flamingos fly in to the warmer mudflats of Sewri, Mumbai to avoid the harsh winters of their breeding habitat in Rann of Kutch, Gujarat. A lot is still to be done to study the main reasons (winter, food-few of them) and their possible routes. Their general stay at Mumbai ( Sewri mudflats, Thane/Airoli/Vashi creeks ) spans October-March, though it depends on the arrival of winters in Kutch and also on the ability of baby-flamingos to fly. Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and few other NGOs are...

There was a time when stamp collection was the Best known hobby. I did try to collect ‘ deo ’ cans, but storage-constrains (!) and apathy towards using them a lot to have empty cans, led it to the well-waited death (though I still have a few old days Old Spice and Denim deo cans ;) . Guitar was the next hobby, I learnt relatively good and was able to play a few numbers as well to inspire at least one guy to took it as hobby, before I left it. I learnt in very early days of my Guitar- saadhna , that my sura -aptitude is as good as Farhaan Akhtar, and at few notes better (!) than him. Finally, I took riding as one hobby, it made me to motivate towards writing – so blogging as the next one and finally photography as another. This post is about the hobby called Photography, mostly candid ( as would be writing a critical later ;) ).  Rather, this post is about the highly enthusiastic guys I have been in constant touch with, for last few months, for a single reason ‘ Photogra...

So, I finally could ride to Kaas Plateau last Sunday. Almost a year back I came to know about this place, popular as Maharashtra’s Valley of Flower, in a Jet Airlines magazine; was scared to miss visiting the place this monsoon and wait for one more year. Trivia Kaas (Kas) Pathaar or Kaas Plateau is located in the Satara District, some 30 kilometers off NH-4 (now NH 48) towards West. Plateau is about 300 kilometers from Mumbai via NH-4 and 375km via NH 17. We took NH-4, which is obviously a faster and better option to ride, though NH-17 is more scenic and the last leg of some 70 km through ghats would be rather amazing to ride.

Short of time preparing for the Zanskar trip , I thought to at least share the Speedfest pictures. So here is the Photo-story of the event... Party Meet was at Grand Hyatt, thrown organised by Vodafone with the Indiblogger for the Bloggers with an opportunity to meet Lewis Hamilton and win a chance to have a ride with him... "Thirty seconds to fame: ran longer than in my previous meet, and I had an opportunity to know many a faces... Alas, I didn't get chance to speak out :/ Then came the famous Indiblogger Hud-hud moment and we hugged as many bloggers as we could (shy I wanted to kiss a few of fair sex bloggers ;)  Finally, got moments to touch and click the shots of the "Chief Guest of the Day", the "Mercedes McLaren F1 ", here are a few shots to reveal her beauty....sure to some extent only :) Super busy Lewis Hamilton arrived little late and was truly 'center of attraction', th...