Ghumakkar's Diary

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...

  I am the biggest Indian fan of F1… I have been following moto racing since I was just a kid…. I know each and every stat of F1 , Moto GP, all the racing circuits by heart… Whatever, I may write, I know and would prove within no time, that am mostly alien to sports and F1 is just one of them. So, why am I writing this Speedfest post in so much hurry? If it wouldn’t have been my ardent sports-fan roomie, my life would have been just around whatever they show on Discovery/NGC about F1 and not what they telecast live on ESPN. I know about Schumi, his brother, Vettel and of course the Hamilton, but in a geeky way .  This rage-cartoon depicts how desperate I am ;) So, what are the reasons? First and the foremost reason is - its F1! It’s all about adrenaline rush, and if you are given a chance to go on a lap with the Lewis Hamilton , for writing a Speedfest post, and you are just ‘thinking’ about it….Leave it I don’t want to abuse you! Nuts!   As an F1 ...

There’s saying, that whatever you may do, plan-replan, if He doesn’t invite, you just can’t pay Him a visit. So, it happened again with me. As blogged earlier, I couldn’t embark on the highly coveted Ladakh ride with Bisons in last July. I was waiting, accumulating leaves (and money too), planning, preparing for the ride for last one year and just couldn’t go. So, I re-planned it with a college senior and bullet enthusiast. Fingers crossed, not shared with anybody, tickets done, final planning started, route done and it cancelled. Partner got his leaves cancelled and thus the plan again crashed. I thought to ride solo, but recent cloud-bursts and landslides, that are rather common as the monsoon dies, killed much of my insane enthusiasm. I have been to Spiti eons back, and it seemed that a visit to North of it just not to happen soon... Shot somewhere in Spiti Valley, Keylong in 2007 At that time, I saw a retweet by Deepak Sir ( @Magic_Eye ).  Dheeraj of DeViL on WheeL...

‘ कुछ लोग अईसे ही भीगे रहते हैं कशमकश में, दुविधा में’ ‘पर, अम्मा कुछ लोग तो बड़े आराम से फैसले कर लेते और खुश भी रहते हैं.’ ‘हाँ, हाँ, कुछ लोग सूखे माने दुविधा-मुक्त भी रहते हैं’ चौबाइन चाची ने हमेशा की तरह सिक्के के दोनों पहलुओं को सामने रखते हुए कहा. चौबाइन चाची का एक अपना तरीका था मिसाल दे के बात समझाने का. अठन्नी के सिंघाड़ा से डेढ़-सौ रुपया की साईकिल और पांच पैसा के टाफी से ले पांच रुपया के सरफ तक कुछ भी, चाची बड़ी आराम से प्रयोग कर लेती थीं मिसाल देने में. ये कहानी तब की जब गए रात कोई पौने आठ बजे ननकू भैया आफिस से घर आये. गांव-देहात में सात-आठ बजे ही रात कहला जाती. तो, कहानी कुछ ऐसी है की उस दिन जब ननकू भैया पौने-आत्ब बजे लौटे, तो बड़े ही अनमने-अटपटे से थे. ऐसे ननकू भैया बड़े ही मस्त मिजाज के प्राणी हैं, हमेश खिलखिल करते रहते नहीं तो बकर-बकर करते रहना तो उनकी आदत में ही है. पर, वो रात कुछ अलग थी. सीधे-सादे ननकू भैया बड़े ही शांत और खोये-खोये थे. चाची हमारी बड़ी ही समझदार हैं, वैसे तो खोद-खाद के किस्सा तुरंत जान लेती हिनहिन, पर कब चुपचाप रहना चाहिए ये कोई उनसे सीखे...

At times, it's not just about Winning. Accomplishing a part of your dreams too leads to Smiles. This happened with us on our last Football Tournament. On paper, our team the Energy Hawks was Third. We gave our one of the Best performance against the 2nd favorite team in semis, but lost the match in penalty shoot-out. It was a recurrence of what happened last year. Scared us, played for the 3rd position against the Dark Horse team of the tournament and finally won it. It wasn't our best show, but sheer feeling of Winning brought us the Smile of Accomplishment. This picture wasn't shot by me, but my friend Jaswinder aka JD who came at the right moment and voluntarily became our official photographer ( Mind it, none of the other teams had any ). The Energy Hawks (Nikon D5000 18-55mm Auto mode shot) Another shot of an Accomplished GoaldKeeper's Smile.... Deepak - Undisputed Best Goalie of the Tournament (Nikon D5000 18-55mm Auto mode shot) Keep Smiling....I l...

It’s been there for geological ages, we have been looking at it for last about 4years and I have been planning to trek it since a long time. Finally, few weeks back, we trekked the Ghansoli Hill. Ghansoli Hill is located at the eastern boundary of Ghansoli town, behind our office complex at RCP. The hill or better hillock is a part of small range that separates Kalyan and Navi Mumbai towns. A search on Google Map returns with a name Parsik Hill for it, though there is one more rather famous Parsik Hill in Navi Mumbai. We also found a NewsArticle , that talks about NMMC plans to develop Nature Awareness Centre at this hills and calls it Gawli Dev Hill. Here, we would be calling it Ghansoli Hill . I asked my colleague about it and he readily agreed. The very next Sunday we did it with another friend. We weren't aware of the route. All we knew is that a Central Road runs along the western edge of the hill and can be reached through the Vashi-Mhape road. We later found that t...