Author’s Desk

05.04.2021

So after a brief respite, we are back to square one again. As the second wave of the corona virus hits India, Maharashtra seems to be the worst affected state. Due to the ever increasing cases, we are heading in to a partial lockdown. There will be strict restrictions on movement of general public during the weekends. There will be complete lockdown during the weekends. Restaurants, cinema halls, malls etc will be closed with restaurants being open for parcel and takeaways. So here we go again.

Due to the lockdown, I had stopped travelling and so there was nothing much to write. So I forgot to renew my domain and now it is expired. So Wanderlust is back to the free page. Hoping to get this rectified soon. The second edition of Wanderlust will again be short but interesting. I did a few things that I always wanted to do but was not confident doing. Stay tuned to know more about it. As usual thank you for all the support and keep those feedbacks coming.

07.11.2020

A year like no other. This is a short summary of how 2020 has been for all of us. No one expected this at the start of the year that we will be looking at a new world pretty soon. A world that no one ever saw coming. Corona Virus, the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown has all hit us pretty hard. No one ever imagined that we will be locked inside our house with no access to the outside world. That keeping distance would be the new norm. No visits to the near and dear ones, no socializing. Just stuck inside the 4 walls with an uncertain future. While few of us were lucky to have a job and lead our normal lifestyles without being worried about the future, many were laid off and had no means of survival. As 2020 is coming to an end, lets hope that we get through all this and go about setting up our lives again from the scratch. There are many who did not make it through so as we go about our lives lets also take sometime to remember these souls.

01.03.2020

Today I finally realised my dreams of putting my blog on a owned domain rather than a free one. Yes, Wanderlust has a home of its own on the net. Wanderlust00.travel.blog is now Wanderlust00.in. A big thank you to all your encouragements and support. Please keep them going.

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29.02.2020

Blogging can be very therapeutic and at the same time exhausting job. Right from finding a niche to keeping the blog ,updated, the job is very tedious. My blogging journey started off when I was in college. This was in 1996, when computers were making a mark in ordinary lives. Owning a computer at that time was out of question and I still remember how I used to spend hours in a cyber cafe uploading my contents. Needless to say, due to the costs involved and because of unfavorable results in terms of blog views and traffic, I soon lost interest and stopped updating my blog. Even though the blog died, the idea still remained at the back of my head.

Wanderlust is a result of that idea that was embedded deep inside my head. It took me around 19 years and 7 unsuccessful attempts to create a blog that has attracted 197 visitors so far with ever growing stats that is encouraging.

Blogging is very much like taking care of a child. You plan for the future growth, chart a growth path, research on posts, publish the posts and then wait for the results. Sometimes you get instant results while some other time the waiting game plays out, which becomes difficult to handle.

There are times when I have struggled to find my next post. There are times when I have almost given up in frustration. A perfect case would be my post on Khotachi Wadi. (My Alice In wonderland Experience in the by lanes of Girgaum, posted on January 26, 2020). This place is so well hidden amidst the towering sky scrapers, that I failed to locate the entrance on my 5 previous visits. I had almost given up when I decided to try for one last time. And this time, fortune favoured me.

Sometimes, the next writing material comes up quite by accident. The perfect example of this case is Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue in South Mumbai (I plan to visit this place soon). I had passed through this beautiful building many times previously on my way to office admiring the beautiful building without knowing its importance. But having known what the building is all about, planning to visit it very soon.

While researching for the subjects, I realized that there are many things that I am not aware of this mega city. Life here is so mechanical that one rarely gets time to sit back and look around. There are so many places of importance which rarely get a mention. My attempt will be to bring these places to the fore. My work may not contribute a lot, but in the end I’ll be satisfied that I got wiser today than I was yesterday and will be wiser tomorrow that I am today.

A big THANK YOU to all those who went through the posts and took time to comment on the articles. Due to a busy schedule, it is not been possible to reply to each and every one of them, But trust me, they mean a lot. It’s always encouraging to have your work appreciated. Not just appreciation, but feedbacks are also welcome. They will push me forward on those days when I’m ready to call it day and give up because I cannot find a way ahead.

There is a lot more to come. So stay tuned and keep engaging. Its always nice to see your efforts pay off positively. Thank you and have a wonderful day.