MY 1300TH BLOG POST CELEBRATION!

With a lot of enthusiasm and excitement, I posted my 1300th blog post titled –  "The Heart of Twin Cities as seen from East and West"  on 25th November. Reaching this milestone has made me very happy and I celebrated this achievement with my family at home and at a restaurant yesterday, 27th November. The attached pictures are of this celebration.

After I posted my first article to this blog site on 20th April 2009, I sent an email to my family, friends, and relatives as follows: “Hi! Everyone, I have just started blogging under the title: ‘Raghu’s column!’ I strongly wish and hope I would find time to contribute regularly to this column on wide-ranging topics: My views, memoirs, parties, forthcoming events, local issues/news, family announcements and many more topics. Please visit https://srisrilara.blogspot.com/ from time to time, please read my articles and post your comment for me and others to benefit”.

At the time when I began blogging, I never thought I would reach a figure of 1300 blog posts. As events came up and ideas, thoughts, and memories sprang to my mind I kept writing as and when possible and in these 9 years and 7 months (3506 days), I have posted 1300 articles with well over 13,000 photographs.

My youngest son and a nephew with his family who are abroad and similarly a number of my friends, relatives and ex-colleagues who are all far away are very happy to read my posts on current events of Hyderabad and those concerning me and our family. And the blog is serving as a ready reckoner for me, our family and friends over various subjects related to us and I presume it is helping a large number of other visitors reaching my blog in search of information.

With a modest number of registered followers but a very large number of unregistered regular followers and hundreds of random visitors to my blog, there have been 1,672,000 pageviews so far, from every nook and corner of the world. Actual pageviews are more than double of 1,672,000…that means around 4 million pageviews! because many computers these days have complex firewall protection which does not allow Blogger to register their pageviews.

My passion for writing, the encouragement I receive and the blog statistics constantly encourage me to contribute more. So, I wish to continue blogging as long as possible, as I am thoroughly enjoying this hobby.

For new readers and occasional readers of my blog, I would like to explain how to reach any of my articles. If you remember the title of any of my articles even partially, all that you have to do is Google Search by typing - Raghu’s column followed by the title in full or part as you remember.  To read any further posts…on every opening page of any blog post of mine, on the opening page you will find on the right side of the page a heading – “Blog Archive”, under Blog Archive you will find the number of posts contributed by me year wise and by clicking on the year it will expand to month wise and by clicking on the month you can see the titles of all my blog posts written in that month.

Finally, I would like to sincerely thank all my family, friends, fans and readers of my blog for their interest and support.

And here below are pictures of the celebration of my 1300th blog:

Here are snapshots of all my 1300-blog posts!:

The Heart of Twin Cities as seen from East and West.

This is my blog post No. 1300, and obviously it has to be something very special. So, it is about a beautiful place that is very close to us, close to us from the times of my paternal grandmother’s grandfather. We have been living close to this place, within 1.5 km, since seven generations, counting our grandchildren! What could be a better topic than this; on this occasion, to jot down in this journal of mine and to present to my readers!

Every village, town, and city in the world has beautiful places and one of them stands out as the most interesting and important one. I call it the heart of the place. Our city, the Twin Cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad has many interesting and beautiful places like historical monuments, palaces, museums, parks and so on. But that which stands out is the one at the center of the Twin Cities, connecting them by Tank Bund Road and the Necklace Road! And at the center is the beautiful Hussain Sagar Lake, which has been entertaining generations of locals and visitors with its wonderful looks and the entertainment it offers through beautiful landscaping along its banks, parks like Sanjeevaiah Park, Lumbini Park, NTR Gardens, Indira Park, several eateries big, small and fine dining restaurants, boat rides, our country’s high-rise, large National Flag, gigantic Lord Buddha Statue and the magnificent Birla Mandir made of marble. This is the heart of our City, close to which we have been living for the past seven generations!

Much can be written in detail about Hussain Sagar but for now in celebration of this beautiful place and my article No. 1300, I present below four videos which I hope would bring back happy memories to my readers from Hyderabad and those who had to leave Hyderabad for various reasons. And I hope it would be of interest to those who are planning to visit Hyderabad and all those who have not yet visited Hyderabad. The videos show Hussain Sagar and its environs from the East End and the West End by Day and by Night.  Followed by these videos is the link to my earlier exhaustive post on Hussain Sagar, titled “Entertainment at Hussain Sagar, is close at hand!”

This link is followed by several happy photographs of us at Hussain Sagar and places of interest and entertainment around it. At different parks like Sanjeevaiah Park, Lumbini Park, NTR Gardens, Indira Park, and at the gigantic Buddha Statue, the marvelous Birla Mandir, our country’s ‘high-rise, large National Flag’ and the eateries, restaurants and hotels around it. This presentation, I hope will bring about some pleasant memories and smiles in people who are from Hyderabad and know about Hyderabad, and will give a fairly good idea to others about this lovely place of our City.

 HUSSAIN SAGAR BY DAY FROM EAST END:

HUSSAIN SAGAR BY NIGHT FROM EAST END:

HUSSAIN SAGAR BY DAY FROM WEST END:

HUSSAIN SAGAR BY NIGHT FROM WEST END:

YOU MAY CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING LINK FOR MY EARLIER ARTICLE ON HUSSAIN SAGAR:

Entertainment at Hussain Sagar, is close at hand!

PHOTOGRAPHS: