Meet the Author - Aditya Khandelwal

On my visit to India during the Easter break, we thought that it would be good to meet some of the authors at Ghumakkar. One of the authors I met was Aditya Khandelwal. Aditya published his first post on December 25, 2010 and since then has gone on to publish a total of 14 posts, each unique and inspiring.


Nandan arranged a meeting at 1:00 PM at Costa Coffee and Aditya generously agreed to take time out of his lunch hour for the meeting. Though I have interacted with many authors at Ghumakkar, this was the first time I was going to meet one in person and I was really looking forward to it. However, my outdated estimates did not work too well especially because I missed a key turn and, therefore, When I arrived, Aditya was already waiting. I had no trouble recognizing him from his profile picture. After apologising for my lack of punctuality we started our discussion over coffee.

The purpose of the meeting was not only to talk to Aditya but also to get first hand feedback about the Ghumakkar experience and Aditya had quite a few valuable inputs to give on this front. I asked him questions about his backgroud, his experience at ghumakkar, his travel interests and his inputs about various activities we do regularly at Ghumakkar and he answered all of them very patiently. During the course of our discussion I learnt that he hails from Patiala, Punjab and completed his Engineering in 2009. Since then he has been working in Noida and has started travelling extensively. And just like his straight-forward, right-from-the-heart posts, Aditya is soft-spoken and unpretentious.

Here are some excerpts from the interview:

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Me: How did you chance upon Ghumakkar?

Aditya: While planning one of my trips I was searching google and chanced upon Ghumakkar. The information was very helpful and I thought that I could also document my travel experiences at Ghumakkar and help some traveller in need like I was. And that is how I started writing at Ghumakkar.
 Me: Apart from Ghumakkar, are there any other sites that you refer?

Aditya: I haven't found any other site like Ghumakkar. It is really unique because all of the experiences documented here are personal travel experiences. Otherwise, I do read the stories at Outlook Traveller too at times.

Me: You must be receiving the monthly newsletters. Do you find them useful? And what else would you like to see there?

Aditya: Yes, I do receive the newsletters periodically and I find them useful. Apart from what you already cover in the newsletters, it will be great if you can provide information about some offbeat places or some interesting facts about tourist destinations.
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From discussing travel we went on to discussing the traffic and electricity problems in Noida and soon realized that our scheduled half-an-hour was long over and the meeting had almost consumed his entire lunch hour.

So after an information-packed, fruitful discussion, I bade farewell to Aditya and walked back to my car thinking about this interview. It is interesting how much we can learn in less than an hour. The discussion with Aditya not only gave me a glimpse into his personality but also a tiny peep into the Ghumakkar community. However different we may be as persons, there is one thing that holds us together and that is obviously our passions to travel. And that was perhaps what prompted Aditya to miss his lunch hour and me to drive across Delhi to get to Noida for the meeting. Deep inside, after all, we are both Ghumakkars.