Viral video of dancing uncle

Amazing video below of dancing uncle on Govinda song. His dancing style is so spot on that it even beats Govinda in the original song. This video became viral. It would be instructive to study it and find the reason why. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs54NYdpJkY

Meals menu at home during Lockdown (March 2020-Aug 2020)

 The lockdown days in Pune were difficult as we were afraid to go out much to get food and vegetables so meals were sort of short cut types with not much variety. Some of the dishes I cooked with unfailing regularity were as follows:

Breakfast: Uttapa for Sona or oats with milk, Bread and cheese or Bread cheese omlette for us

Lunch: One out of Lauki ki sabzi, Karela alu sabzi, Drumstick brinjal alu sabzi in rotation

             Masoor or Toor Dal on most days, Rice (Sona has 1 spoon of rice)

             Sometimes (Once or twice a week) Chicken nuggets or Basa fish or egg curry

Dinner : Chapatti, 

               One sabzi out of  Bhindi alu sabzi, Mushroom subzi, Alu Mutter, Alu gobhi, Baigan fry

                Curd

Very rarely I would make Veg Biriyani, Lemon Rice, Cakes or Noodles

Cakes made on gas oven for her Baba's birthday by Sona

Dhokla prepared by following a recipe from the internet turned out to be nice and tasty

Samosa made by Sona

Special Tomato soup by Sona for me when I was down with Corona like symptoms was very tasty

and helped me recover quickly

 

Special Chocolate cake on my birthday

We ate a lot of seasonal fruits: Grapes, Mango, Pomegranate, even Litchi was available for one or two weeks in June and then Guava

New activities learned: Lockdown was a lesson as it taught us to manage without maids or even the services of barbers/ or laundry services. Had to do sweeping, mopping, washing dishes, hair cutting.

I even tried my hand at painting the bathroom door

One definite advantage of the worldwide lockdown was decrease in pollution levels. We had a good view of the faraway hills from our balcony which used to be hazy earlier.

Hope this lockdown ends so that we are able to go to Kolkata soon to celebrate Durga Puja there this time.

Fault correction for Laptop Camera turning on/off in video mode

 Recently after an update of Windows 10 in Sona's laptop , her laptop camera suddenly started behaving erratically. In video mode the camera would start turning off after every 2secs and then turn on again. This caused problems in taking online tests with digital proctoring. Since we were in lockdown, getting laptop to HP service shop was also ruled out. Then I decided to troubleshoot it myself from help articles in the internet. 

  First I tried updating the driver for the camera, so I uninstalled and then again reinstalled the drivers. This did not work. I thought that Kaspersky must be hampering access to camera, so went to privacy settings and disabled the web cam protection. This did not work. Then disabled Kaspersky from running and all firewalls switched off which did not help. The problem persisted irritatingly. Then I tried to remove the Camera app from Microsoft, but it could not be uninstalled. It had to be done from Power Shell command. Following the online commands from Microsoft help I uninstalled and then again reinstalled the Camera app. No luck the problem still persisted. I then thought that the last resort would be to try to restore Windows 10 operating system to an earlier date when the camera had been working properly. But I would loose a lot of work which I had done in the intervening period. From the internet another thing I tried was altering the registry editor to enter a new key 'EnableFrameServerMode' in the Windows given path. But this solution too did not work.

Then lastly in one of the posts I read that changing the name of the driver folders slightly had helped many people facing the same issue as I was having with the camera. I did the change and Eureka!!

the camera started working properly. Eternally thankful to the program developers who can go through the code and find solutions to such problems and then publish it online so others can benefit. 

The hack 

Go to C:\ProgramFiles\Realtek

Change RsProviders folder name  to RsProviders_ (as backup)

Precautions against Coronavirus (COVID 19)

Corona virus has assumed frightening proportions over the world and is slowly threatening India. We must all come together to fight this dreaded disease. Since there is no vaccine for this disease as of date, the only way to stop the march of the virus is to adopt the techniques as follows: 

1. Strict self hygiene : Was hands thoroughly with soap and water for at least 20 secs when coming from market, work etc as the virus gets transmitted from hands to mouth/face/nose and eyes on touching.

2. After washing hands thoroughly, wash face with soap and water to assure cleanliness. This is my personal view.

3. Wear mask when going out to ensure that airborne particles, virus are restricted from entering nose.

4. Drink lots of hot water (2 -3 glasses in morning) to stay hydrated. 8-9 glasses throughout the day is required.

5. Avoid visiting crowded places, malls, shops, air conditioned rooms, cinema theatres to avoid spread of virus.

6. To increase immunity following techniques from ayurveda and homeopathy can be adopted

Have a kada of turmeric, ginger, tulsi and honey on empty stomach.
Chawanprash to increase immunity. Giloy (2 tablets) to increase immunity

Yoga like kapal bhati and anulom vilom to increase fitness


In India many people have the habit of spitting in public - on the roads, in public transport and also in public utilities like lifts of buildings, staircases and wherever they generally feel like.
 Strict action should be taken against such people by fining them hefty amounts, once evidence of this is collected in the CCTV, as spitting in public is not only a nuisance but can now help in spread of this disease. This is my personal opinion.

Design of my room online

I was searching online for ideas to design and decorate the house when I found this free online tool roomstyler.com where it was very easy to draw and visualise the room design.  There are readily available furniture which can be inserted in the rooms with the dimensions mentioned for each individual piece. The wall colours, flooring types all have provision to be inserted here. The camera can be positioned and renders a good 3D view of the room. The overall look and feel of the room can be planned and pricing be estimated.

Pic 1: Plan of Living and Dining area with the 3D view in top right corner

 Pic 2: 3D Visualisation of the Living and Dining Area

Pic 3: 3D Visualisation of the Dining area with camera panned to this area of the room

Pic 4: Plan view of the Master Bedroom occupied by 6 by 6 bed, wardrobes and dressing table

 Pic 5 : 3D View of the Master Bedroom with camera panned to bed area

 Pic 6 : Plan view of the second bedroom

 Pic 7: 3D View of the second bedroom

Pic 8: Plan view of the kitchen

Pic 9: 3D View of the kitchen

Deoghar Trip on 17-21Dec 2019

Deoghar is a holy city beside the Mayurakshi River, in the east Indian state of Jharkhand. The ancient Baba Baidyanath Temple complex is a significant Hindu pilgrimage site. There are many famous ashrams here. Anukul Thakur Satsang ashram, Swami Balananda ashram and Ramkrishna mission Ashram are some of the well known ashrams here. The town is small and picturesque. There are many budget hotels here and food is tasty and good. The climate and water is good for health. Very little pollution.

 Our Deoghar Trip was one which we almost cancelled, went at the nth hour, almost scared to death at arriving there but ultimately we had a single good day , returned safely and all in one piece. Our onward journey was almost cancelled the prevous day when we learned of the Howrah station trains being disrupted due to NRC-CAA ruckus. Thankfully we did not cancel it. The train was on time and we reached Deoghar on time. We reached the ashram were we were to stay. I had booked the tickets long ago as it was Ma's great wish to go there with us all. So though I had booked the forward and return journeys allright I did not search or book any hotel as I assumed we would be staying at the ashram for which we were primarily going. I was wrong here. Later came to know from my relatives that they all stay in hotels when they visit Deoghar. Ist mistake. 2nd mistake : Although we expected Deogarh to be cold in winter we didnt expect the intensity of the cold. The first night in the ashram it was so cold that we were all shivering under the thin single blankets even with sweaters and socks on  and could not sleep the whole night. Baba thought he would kick the bucket there itself. He had been made to walk almost for 1 hour after reaching the asram in order to get the rooms . At his age (82) we were all scared what would happen to him. I was scared stiff. Anyway, somehow we spent the night. Next morning first half was spent hunting for a hotel. Here Murphy's law once again proved itself. The hotels which we liked were all full or too expensive. The ones which were offered to us we rejected. After roaming through the city in an auto and visiting umpteen hotels we at last homed down on a hotel Shivam which had broken balconies, a lift which barely worked and geysers in the toilet which did not. It was an international hotel but without hot water. Seems a fire or short circuit had conked out the electrical power wiring. We took rooms in the hotel which we again had to change midway as there was no light in the toilet. After angry heated altercations with the staff during which they tried to stick us with the room allotted(without lights in the toilet) an we claiming that we would walk out of the hotel though we were all tired out we made a compromise at getting a bigger and better room at same price.

      Next day was a good one. We booked a car to go sightseeing. The weather was nice and sunny and we could visit Trikut pahar, cablecar ride, Tapovan and Baba Mandir. It was a good trip. We found a nice hotel in walking distance from the hotel where the meals were good. Our return journey was also nice with new train compartments. Baba proved to himself and to us that he was still fighting fit. So it was an eventful trip for us. On one day Sona suddenly blew her fuse and had a huge quarrel with Dadu as to why he was switching on the room lights and waking everybody when she was feeling sleepy. That had nearly spoilt our second day as well, but she came around and we all went sightseeing together.

Andaman Vacation

Andaman Vacation
During the summer break in Sona's college we visited Andaman from 12th to 16th May 2019.
We had earlier planned to visit Leh Ladakh in this period thinking that a trip to the mountains
would be more comfortable in the summer heat than one in the sultry seaside. We changed
plans when dada told us that since Leh is at a higher altitude everyone inevitably suffers from
altitude sickness here. So on remembering our problems during our Darjeeling trip when Sona
was quite small I decided for a seaside vacation instead.
We took the early morning 600 am flight from Pune to Chennai by Indigo. Flight was on time
and we reached Chennai airport by 8.00am. Here we had to wait for 4 hours as next flight to
Port Blair was at 1.00 PM. The airport was chillingly cold and although Sona and I had bought
jackets, Sum had not brought one and I was forced to buy some expensive wraps(dupatta) at
the airport shops so he would not catch cold. I had forgotten to wear socks. Anyway the next
flight was also on time and soon we were near Port Blair. When the flight was near to landing,
I got the first glimpse of the beautiful islands of Andaman, green with vegetation, surrounded
by blue waters of the bay of Bengal! It was a pretty sight! Veer Savarkar airport at Port Blair
reminded me of Pune Airport. It is a small airport with limited flights. From the airport we took
a cab to go to Ramkrishna Mission located near the main tourist centre where we had booked
accommodation. Port Blair is a picturesque place being near the sea as well as hilly at some
points. Roads are excellent here. It is well light up at night too with the seaside promenade
light up with bright fairy lights. There are excellent restaurants which serve Indian, continental
and Chinese dishes, though expensive as most things are imported from the mainland. After
freshening up in the room we decided to go out and scout around. The famous cellular jail was
at a walking distance and we booked tickets for the sound and light show that evening. Shreya
was taking a nap in the room while we were out and so was fresh when we went to have dinner
and then watched the show from 7.30-8.30pm that day. The show was visually impressive
relating the trials and tribulations suffered by the Indian freedom fighters at the hand of their
British jailer David Barrie. It was very moving .The next day we had decided to visit the nearby
islands namely North bay for water sports and Ross Island - historically important. So we
took a boat to the islands. It took around 30 mins to reach Northbay island where Sona was
supposed to do scuba diving. Sum had booked 2 tickets. Seeing his reluctance to go with
her, I then decided I'd go with her. We got into scuba clothes and went to the trainers who were
already in the water. My trainer an obnoxious man called Sridhar asked me to put on the mask ,
breathe through my mouth and not nose. The oxygen tank was strapped to my back. I tried
it couple of times but somehow felt panicky beyond a few seconds underwater. A feeling of
suffocation engulfed me and I started to panic. The trainer made it only worse by not guiding me
properly and making negative comments. "You are not doing it properly" , " look here not there"
and such like. After trying for some time I decided that this was not my cup of tea and gave
up. Meanwhile Sona had grasped the ropes pretty quickly from her trainer and was ready for
the dive by the time I had given up. She went ahead while I turned back to the shore. She had a
wonderful experience during the dive - the corals and fishes underwater were really worth seeing
and the videos and pics taken , also made us feel a part of it. Only downside was some water
must have entered her ears during the dive which gave her an earache later on , but the dive was
truly excellent. Sum tried to do snorkeling but chickened out in this also. On the whole it was a
good day. After this we were taken to Ross island which was an island where the colonial life is
well documented, and island is dotted with buildings built by the British - their officer's quarters,
clubs and bungalows now mostly deserted. There was even a club called subordinate's club.
We took a golf cart trip which took us around the entire island enumerating the various places
of interest. That ended our activities for that day. The second day we visited some nearby
places- namely Corbyn's cove, cellular jail, saw mill , joggers park , chidiya tapu by hiring an auto
for the whole day. Cellular jail is pretty impressive historical monument as well as a unique
architecture. Earlier Andaman islands was notorious as Kalapani - the black water island where

convicts were sent to lead a life of torture and deprivation. Chidiya tapu was a pretty place with
greenery, clear waters, though seemingly infested with crocodiles, which prevents people from

going for a swim here. The next day we went for an excursion to the middle andaman islands-
called Baratang for which we had to pass through territory which was reserved for the tribals

called Jarawas of Andaman. For this we had hired a vehicle - Ertiga. We started at 5.30am in
the morning and reached the convoy point at 8.00 am. The route was through some pretty bad
bumpy roads though green forested areas. At the convoy assembly point around a 100 odd
vehicles like cars, buses, jeep etc had collected who were left through the reserve forest at only
some fixed times of the day . 6, 9 and ,12 ,3 o clock only . We had breakfast at some tapris here
and at 9.00 am the convoy of vehicles started. Jarawas numbering around 300 are a protected
tribe, and we were strictly prohibited from filming them, offering food etc to them. We were
soon eagerly looking here and there for a glimpse of these elusive tribe. Soon our curiosity was
satisfied when our driver pointed to two people a woman and man standing on the roadside
as jarawas. We saw that they were of negroid features wearing normal clothes. Further ahead
Sona spied a man up in the tree sand also a group of children chatting with a forest ranger.
We were thrilled to see them. At around 11 we reached the point where a launch ferry took us
to another point where we got into speed boats which would take us to limestone caves. The
speed boat took around 45mins travelling through the waters took us to the point where the
mangrove forests started. Here a young guide took us - a group of 10 people to the limestone
caves. These caves contained formation of stalagmites and stalactites which I saw for the first
time in my life.The caves were at a distance of 1km from the point where the boat had dropped
us. The return was in the same way. We returned to the hotel by 6.00pm, tired out. The next day,
our last day we were planning to visit the famous havelock island by steamer. But since we
had not booked seats earlier, it was all full and ones which were available was very expensive.
Also Sum and Sona had repeatedly refused to go to havelock as we had been warned that
everyone vomited during the passage, so we dropped the idea of going there. Instead we
decided to go to north bay once more. Here Sona and I both did snorkeling which we both
enjoyed immensely. I was witnessing the beauty of the corals and colorful fishes for the first
time and it was beautiful! Sum was feeling a bit left out and did not try snorkeling again. That
day Sona started to develop earache. Since next day was our departure we decided to keep it
light on the last day. In the evening we took a leisurely walk around the seaside promenade and
once more marvelled at clean and green andaman. Next day our flight was on time at 10.30 from
Port Blair . By 12.30 we reached Kolkata. Even in the heat we had had a lovely time during our
andaman vacation and treasured memories of our time there.