Sophisticated dreams and The Train

I am sleeping alone in Study room in my house. Just woke up from the following real Dream.

My family, all 4 of us, Me, Shivangi and both kids Kiara & Kashvi are on a vacation to my native village Bari Tengraila. Our vacation is ending, so we need to return to Delhi. I am taking showers at Nanighar. However, I notice that yesterday old clots are laying dry in the bathroom. I decide that, since we are anyway going back, today also, I will not make the cloth wet, and simply pack them for Washing Machine was at Delhi. [ Reality: I do this on weekly cadence for eventually weekend washing.] When we went on vacation from Delhi to Patna, my father had accompanied me. [ Not true, they left 1 month back]. However, we have to return ourselves. So, my parents arrange a care taker from the village. He is some 15-year-old kid. He will accompany us to Delhi and then return. He has been given a ticket to Delhi and promised Rs 4500 when he drops. We board the train at Patna Junction. I have a conversation with him at the start of the journey. I ask him, how will you return, will you manage to buy ticket. He confidently says, “yes. Just asks me not to reduce his 4500 amounts. He may even buy a plane ticket with that amount. “. [ This is the last time he is with me in the dream.].

                We board the last compartment of the train. The bogie itself is kid of a Jumble between general class and sleeper class. It is more like a waiting room setup at the station. Benches all around the periphery. With few more row of chairs at the back. We sit in the last chair of the train. So last that, we are outside the roofed area, and in the open. [ Real train has guard compartment at the end with open floors. ] That kind of setup.

The train is moving with good speed. Train was supposed to be overnight. However, in the next scene, train is moving in daytime. I talk to Shivangi appreciating our very good and extreme light luggage. Just 3 to 4 trolly. [ Reality: We really had 3 trolly in the vacation we went 1 month back.] Kids are sleeping. And than the train crosses a Bridge. A special kind of bridge. From the look of it, the bride is not on river, but above another road. We are somewhere in Jaipur! . The bridge design appears such that it can be opened in the middle, to make way for large vehicles on the road. Opening radially. Like Pumban bridge maybe. Deck is not elevated, but rotationally elevated. The joint between both segments has large pool of cylindrical rubber tubes. Like we see in the vertical shaft between 2 bogies of the train. And I am thinking “How does the track align after the train bridge is lowered back into place? How is expansion joint gap requirement is handled in the middle? They (engineers, which I am one of) can’t have this kind of beauty in Bullet train project we are constructing from Mumbai to Ahmadabad “[Reality Connection: My friend Babla does design review of Bullet train tracks in office.]

                The scene changes. It is night time now. The train is moving not on the actual train tracks but some kind of city metro/tram route track. The kind in Kolkata.  A vibrant lighted city. The train is moving very zig zag and slowly. And since we are at the last section of last bogie, with no roof. Train is moving extremely slow. So slow that people are deboarding, to buy something from the shop and quickly boarding back. While the train moves. Kids are wakeup. They are playing. Seeing other people, both Kiara and Kashvi also deboard. I shout at them to get back at the train immediately. They don’t listen. So to bring them back, I also deboard. Somehow, the train speeds up. Me, Kiara and Kashvi have missed the train. Train is Gone! We should to stop the train to no avail. Shivangi is still on the train. Somehow at this point, train tracks are not straight. They are very zig zag, like the narrow alleys in unplanned Patna city. I am in full panic mode. How will we reach Delhi how? I run behind the train shouting to pull the “emergency brake chain pulley”. Somehow the train is very away. 1km away. I can see Shivangi standing at the back handrail. However, she can’t hear from this distance. While I should be taking care of kids, I am kind of just running behind the train. Maybe I will call Shivangi on phone and ask for Chain pulling. While I am running, I see Ujjwal [ My cousin brother from Village, her mother died of Cancer yesterday. May her soul rest in peace.] holding Kashvi in Lap, standing. I am assured of her safety. Kiara, I believe will take care of herself and will not move around. I keep running. The train is in kind of other side of a very large lake. [ Reality Connection: The kind of lake in harry potter story I read to Kiara]. Along side the lake, there is this Marine drive Mumbai type road. Anyway, soon I see Shivangi walking back towards me. She also has abandoned the train looking for kids. I am usual me, telling her “Why did you leave the luggage, I was with kids na, I would have brought them back anyway? I would have taken the overnight flight and reach Delhi before train reaches you and receive you at the station! “Now that train is totally gone, we start walking backwards on the curvy roads towards kid. Shouting Kiara / Kashvi …..

We reach to the point where they initially deboarded. However, this is not some random street. It is her Nanighar we reached. Both kids are home and sleeping. Then I see, that all Hairs of Kashvi is gone. Like she has been given Mundan. [ Reality Connection: She has turned 2, and her 1^st mundane is due soon.]. I a thinking. Whoever found Kashvi on the street, must have planned to send her to Orphanage. She (2 years) can’t tell yet, who her parents are and live where. I am furious at this prospect. At myself.

And I wake up. My heartbeat is very fast. Maybe 120! I realize, it was just a Dream. And I feel relaxed, heartbeat normalizing. I open the phone to see the time, It’s 5:30am. I am thing, that was one hell of a dream. What’s up with the really sophisticated dream, I am having recently? Just few days back also, I had 2 back-to-back sophisticated dreams. Maybe it’s my modified sleep timings recently. Somehow, Dreams are in very short-term memory. By evening everyone forgets about the dream you clearly remember in the morning. Do you remember, any dream from last year? Not me. Actually, even last week? Not me. Few days back also I had this thought, but not pursued the idea. I have thought about writing all my sleep dreams before. Maybe it can become a good book! This one was too good/hell of a dream to ignore. I must write it down, before it’s gone from memory lanes. Even 1 hr. after waking up, I have this feeling that I have already missed many other fine details I had during the dream, but forgot to write in above passage. And I am done writing this one. It is 6:20am. Time to get ready for office.

Good morning.

Edit in the Evening:

Once I read the somewhere, why do we dream? What is the biological reason humans evolved to sleep dream? The explanation is 2 different set of reasons. 1^st is the fulfilment factor. Humans have many desires, which might not fulfill in real life. So, brain conjures itself the happiness of having achieved/acquired those unfulfilled real-life desires. This makes people, at least the brain feel for a short duration. 2^nd is the survival factor. Humans many times perceive danger. Or mind conceives probable miseries, so that it can plan for future survival. In olden times manual wars, shoulders who dreamed of battles, has higher chances of survival. This led to natural selection of dream generating genes! This is pure science.

Finishing 6th Half Marathon

 6^th Half Marathon

I finished my 6^th Half Marathon on 12^th October 2025. There is something unexplainable about running half marathons. Every time I finished one, I wanted to write about it. Finally, the stars are aligned. So, it all began somewhere in 2015, I think. One of my roommates Ashfaq was “into the fitness” guy. Just to recollect a funny story, Ashfaq was the owner of our shared washing machine. He washed his running shoe in it. It came out all clean and shining. I took inspiration, washed mine as well. Oops. Ashfaq’s one was expensive pro shoe, mine, just another shoe. It came out in single pieces, alas but with many new feathers! Anyway, Ashfaq inspired me to go for my 1^st Half Marathon. So, I registered for Airtel Delhi Half Marathon. I still somehow remember finishing that one. No planning. Not much practice either. Run all my strength at the beginning, and then just walking and walking and walking. Though I finished in something like 2 Hrs. 45mins. I got the feel of it and was already addicted.

Then the 2^nd Half marathon, I maintained a “pace”. Trying to keep my heartbeat in control and such. This time I was doing a lot better. I was expecting to finish in 2 Hrs. 30 min or so. As part of their planning, half marathon organizers put many cheerful music, dance, band party etc. on the road. I was so excited at 20km mark. Out of excitement, I tried to kneel down and beat one of the “dholak”. Oops, turns out when you are already running for 2 Hrs., any odd sudden posture change is dangerous. Developed a very severe cram in one of my shoulders. The pain so intense, I couldn’t even walk properly. Walking like an extremely sad kid. It took me a whole 20+ minutes for that last 1 km. Finished worse than my 1^st half marathon.

As they say, 3^rd time is the charm! This time, I started practicing 2 moths before. Obviously, the addiction was not strong enough to make me run the whole year. I practice 3km per day. That’s it. But I was consistent. On the race day, this time I paced up quite good. I ran for 12km non-stop from the beginning. Then consistent 1 min run followed by 1min walk. At one point, the pacer (2 hrs. 20 min maybe) I was following encouraged me to zoom past. However, I meet him again near the finish line. And I think this one was the best personal record at some 2 Hrs. 25 mins.

Then I ran 4^th half marathon, my last one from Delhi home. This time, now married, wife came up to cheer up. I finished up again in less than 3 Hrs. Not as good as 3^rd one but still OK.

Over time, I ran 2 10km runs as well. One organized by PSPB. One by someone else. Can’t remember. The PSPB arrangement was really bad. So bad that next year when I received official invitation, I didn’t register. But that year, the arrangement was too good. Even my boss Deepak sir (45+) ran it and loved it. I gave that one a miss. By 2019 I had shifted to Gurugram and the venue was too far away to reach early 4am. So, I discontinued. Then in 2023 gathered courage again. Turns out the Lead sponsor had changed from Airtel to Vedanta. Due to too many people registering for half marathon, they also have implemented a time certificate requirement for half marathon (21km) category. So, I had to fall back to Open 10K (10km) category. Just to generate a valid time certificate to be used next year. One good thing happened was I got my brother-in-law Parth as company. We practiced 2km run daily for around 45 days before race. One more thing I noticed in this race is the change in Starting Point Venue for 10km category. The head count has swelled to 30 thousand people across all race category. They all of them couldn’t start a Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. We started from some new place. Though finishing line was same. Can’t remember which one of the races taught me to change the shoe. I was running using the same sports shoe, I have been wearing daily to office. Perhaps it had become stiff. I bought a new only-for-running shoe after that race. Decathlon KeepRun2 series.

With the time certificate, I registered for the 5th Half marathon in 2024. This time Parth missed the registration window for 10km and didn’t dare to try 21. So, he gave it a skip. Alone, I barely practiced. There is something about practicing together. Helps a lot with motivation. Turns out, just 15 days before race, I hurt my ankle. Was forced to stop practicing. Even brisk was started giving me pain. This was the 1s time, I was toying with the idea of skipping the race even after registration. Fortunately, somehow, I realized that my front part of the leg was still healthy. If I just ran on my front finger part, maybe I could. By this time, Delhi Metro has started operating special trains on race day 3:15am onwards. So, the transport part was solved. I used to take commercial CAB for all prior race. But this time, I could take Metro. So, I gathered all my courage. Decided, if I felt trouble in leg, I better abort the race in then middle, than just not showing up. Took a 2 Lyter water bottle with me, because last time toilet was out of water! I At least they allowed the water bottle inside. They had me drop it in one of the prior races. Took a very slow pace. It was good. Run again for some 9km in initial go. Then walk and run alternately. Trying to avoid hitting ankle on the ground as possible. This was my worst race so far. 3 Hrs. 18 min. Fortunately, I finished before the Timing-Certificate requirement of 3 Hrs. 30 min. Perhaps my increased body weight also played a role.

Then came 2025, my 6^th half marathon. The practice was 2 times a week. And once gain, 15 days before race, I slept in some wrong position, developing cramp in my neck. So, no practice in last 15 days. ☹. Based on the abysmal performance in the 5th race, I was placed in the last holding section “F” for my current 6th half marathon. Anyway, Holding Area is just an alphabet. I took Delhi Metro again. Reached well on time. Even participated little bit in warmup zone. The initial non-stop race (except for 1 toilet break at 8km) was 13km. Somehow, my body weight or the lack of practice, my “pace” had become a lot slower. Fortunately, neck was cured by the race day. This time I also focused on hydration. I took Shashikant Sahu (same building as mine, runs half marathon twice a week) sir’s advice “If you are feeling thirsty, it’s already too late” seriously. I drank 100ml or so water every 2km. The race course amenity was also plenty this year. Afterall, they charged Rs 2600 as registration fee. Even took extra chocolates to maintain energy level in my blood stream. After the initial run for 13km I took some walk. For 1 or 1.5km. Than run again. Around 16km mark, I though to follow 1km run 1km walk, however the energy level was simply giving up. Couldn’t run for more than 500m continuously. At these 17 to 18km mark it all starts to become a game of will power. I had my sight fixed to finish the race before 3 Hrs. At one point, I put up the earbuds. Music gave me boost for next 1km or son. Another strategy I thought and worked quite well was that for the road section which were in shadows, I ran and the section directly under sun light, I walked. I never took the pain-relieving Volini spray at the intermediate medical stations. To me, it is better to be aware of the state of muscles than artificially suppress them. There is something about reaching 20km. They body starts to energize little bit again. The road signs count down starts to show up every 100m. I think I ran most of the last 1km. By this race, I have started remembering the route. That turn just below that fly-over and so on. And finally, I finished the race in 2 Hrs. 55min. It is just awesome. After the race, I tried Ice packs for the 1^st time. They are quite effective. They serve quite good post-race energy meal. Took the metro back to Huda City Center Metro station. Drove Car back home. They charge night charges also I you park that early in the morning. There is something about CAR ergonomics. I could drive easily without much effort on the legs. One thing I noticed after this race was my hunger. I was like always hungry for next 3 days. Eating nonstop, at every opportunity. The pain, in the muscle, start on the 2^nd day after race. When the body starts cleaning up all the accumulated anaerobic respiration generated lactic acid build up in the leg muscle. It’s a sweet pain though. You don’t cry. It’s pleasant pain. Took full 1 week no exercise / walking schedule. Finally, now I think, I should be practicing more regularly. Maybe I can beat my 3^rd race gain. Even chief minister of Jammu & Kashmir Mr. Omar Abdulla participated in this race and finished in 2 Hrs. 15 min or so. I better learn to be regular. For the 1^st time, I have started running 2 or 3km daily after the race. The Delhi NCR is known for winter pollution. So, I just race in the Gym. Let’s see what happens next year. Good Luck future me!

Thoughts on buying expensive TV and everything.

Thoughts on buying expensive TV.

 

I have had a Sony 26" LED TV since 2011. It is now 14-year-old, and still absolutely functional. At the time, I bought it in 2011, the most popular TV technology was LCD. Very few new expensive ones were either LED (mine) or Plasma TVs. Me, being a tech enthusiast, bought the smallest size of the than-premium range 26EX420. It even has LAN port built in and an inbuilt YouTube App. YouTube discontinued support for that App more than 5 years ago. This was even before Android TV was born. Last few years, it was being used along with Amazon Fire TV Stick. It needed a paid service repair only once (INR 3500, aftermarket motherboard replacement) and the panel and sound are still as good as new.

Fast forward 10 years, LED is commodity. Even the cheapest of the TVs are LED. 32" is increasingly the minimum size of the TV. As for Technology, OLED is supposed to be best of them all, followed closely by QLED. Notice the marketing gimmicks of "Q" vs "O". They look and sound the same, but are entirely different thing. QLED is more of an enhancement of old-fashioned LED. The primary strength of OLED is individual pixel's capability of independently switching ON/OFF. Though, OLED can achieve only ~60% of peak brightness of QLED.

I have been planning, no wanting, to upgrade the contemporary TV for 2 years already. Choosing between, LED, Full-Array-Local-Dimming LED, Micro-LED (not available commercially yet), OLED, and QLED, I decided OLED is the best of them. Seeing the decade+ life of existing TV, going with Sony was a no brainer. Sony being among the best known for excellent picture quality and offering Android Capability, it is a no brainer I choose to go again with Sony. However, there is one hitch, Sony OLED range Bravia 8 are really expensive. In 2023, costing around >200k for now commonplace size of 55". Beyond what I could justify spending with my take home salary. It remained in my Amazon Wishlist. OLED being new, I expect the prices to fall down quickly as the production ramped up. Every Amazon Sale, I kept checking the wish list, alas, QLED has already won the marketing war. Apparently, OLED TVs stopped getting cheaper. From, my constant tracking, I observed that prices decrease 10k every 2 months in this price range. So, I never bought one. 2025, Sony upgraded it to Bravia 8 Mark II. Worst of all, the price increased by ~40k. Oops. Once something newer is available, I can't digest buying older generation stuff. So back to waiting and waiting and waiting....

Suddenly out of no-where Indian government decided to lower the GST rate on >32" TVs from 28% to 18%. Just before the Navratra 2025 sale. That's 20k Price reduction in 2 weeks! The Ex-salesperson of the Chroma store (now working for Reliance Digital) I have been interacting with, called me personally to inform of the price reduction. As part of Navratra offer, SBI Credit Card offered another 10k discount! So, I bite the bullet. Even though people in my family considered it expensive, I bought Bravia8ii from local chroma store.

It was installed on 27th September 2025. The colors are awesome. 4k HDR video on You-Tube are surreal. I am loving this new shiny expensive toy of mine. However, here is this reality kicking in. Has it made me happier in life? Somewhat. Have I started watching more Television? Not at all. Kids still get the highest time-slice of TV per day. Am I looking forward to watching this beautiful TV? Not much. It seems the only good impact on me is that I have no regret or any sense of compromise, Technology wise. Had I bought QLED, there would have been a persistent back of mind feeling of not getting "the-best-one-out-there". That's it. It is quickly becoming "new normal". Without changing any day-to-day lifestyle.

Actually, I am already missing the "journey", now that I have reached the destination.

This is making me think hard about my other fantasy tech-toys. Hint: There are 20+ of them in the "Ram Gadgets" wish list. Perhaps happiness has nothing to do with physical possessions. One "lecture" I keep giving to my wife is that the only persistent happiness in life is "sense of creation and achievement". Art, Body/Health, Family, Business, Software.... Anything creative is lasting happiness. Buying TV is definitely not one of them. Buying Jewelry? Ask your better-half! Apparently buying anything physical, has very short half-life of happiness. Unless, it has a daily "can't-do-without" level of utility. This is the feeling I wanted to document in this blog.

My dream PC build, you got to wait a lot longer now!

It is better that I focus on my creative project Mission Vishwakarma 2035. Have more time with Kids and Family. At the end of the day, these physical things are just another "possession". Words for my future self, before these emotional states dissolves itself. Last but not the least, do not fall for the online sale!

-Ram Shanker, 30th September 2025.

Covid lockdown teaching me to cook - Food for Thoughts

     Sometimes, probably 5  years or so back, I along with 6 to 8 friends went to a restaurant in Hauj Khas Village for lunch to celebrate something. We ordered many things. Handi Biryani being one of them. It is a specialty dish made with Rice as basic ingredient. Many of the restaurants cook them in a pot made of burned-clay. Just when we were halfway through the lunch, the chief-of-cooks came to ask "How is food?". We had only good things to say. It was really good. Than he noticed one of my friends mixing the biryani inside the "Handi". He said, "Hey don't mix it, you need to taste all the layers separately.". He explained further, "Food taste better when you intermix the varying taste". It is the variation which we enjoy. Say salt and sugar. Sour and Chilly, sorrow and plain.. and so on. This is why Handi Biryani taste so good. It has a particular aroma, color and taste gradient. The rice nearer to surface is cooked more and brownish, while the center is less cooked and much whiter. This is my first thought on cooking.

So this was one of the lessons I learned about food. In my part of the India, cooking is mostly a "Female" thing. Boys are not generally taught how to cook. Boys and men learn cooking much much older when they HAVE to. Are forced by the circumstance. This lockdown being one of them for me !! We being two brothers only, we never learned to cook anything in childhood. My mom wanted me to study and never bother about cooking. So there goes the age old culture...… Up to grade 5, my mom cooked for me. After that, it was the "mess" of the boarding school. Collage also had "mess" for food. When I started working and was Bachler, we lived with other boys and hired a maid to cook for us. Though I did cook some specialty items like sandwiches, Magee, Poha etc occasionally on weekends, but that was it.  When I married, wife was working in 24x7 shifts. Not much time to cook. So again we hired a maid to cook for us. Now in recent turn of events, my wife went to hometown for a month, to help with her sister's marriage. Sometimes in March. 2nd wave of Covid was just brewing up in India, and when lockdown started, maids were forbidden to come to our home, or restricted to only one flat in society. Same had happened in lockdown one.

So here I am. A forced bachelor. COOKING SINCE LAST 2 MONTHS !!  And it is awesome. When I started cooking, just out of random thoughts, decided NOT to watch any YouTube video or recipe website. Just cook whatever I had observed our maids or my mom doing. I learned quite a lot. I did have some theoretical ideas, some really good ones as well like the 1st para of this blog post. However this does not mean, I invented cooking. My mom was always there with here awesome tips. One day I sent the photos of Rotis during lunch. She immediately called over phone and said "Roti looks burned, it must be chimmar". And it was. She gave me the time that you can over-cook roti only when you are going to eat it immediately. Otherwise it would become chimmar and difficult to eat. So that day onwards, my morning cooked rotis tasted good even during lunch. Mom kept giving me tips whenever she saw any peculiarities in my platter. Mistakes one after another. Love you mom. Another tip I got from my father was how to make rotis bump-up 10x. You put roti on tawa, and flip it just after 10 seconds. This will create a very thin layer in a side. Than let it cook for 30 or so seconds. Than when you put it finally on open flame, the initial layer made in 10 sec would separate from opposite layer, and  roti would be 10x the original height. He he he he. It works. Even for my rectangular rotis. More on this latter. 

Another thing I had learned during my occasional Poha cooking was this. Food is spoiled always due to excess of ingredients. You put more masalas in it, it would become bitter and not eatable. Put more salt, and again you can not eat. Put too much of Garlic, and you are going to absolutely throw it ! Put too much chilly and your nose will not let you eat. So basically be conservative about additive ingredients. Basic ingredient of the  food like rice, aatta etc can be put in volume based on how much, and how many persons need to eat. However when it comes to additives, always be conservative. I have been putting just a pinch of Jeera-powder and Dhania-Poweder to all my vegetables. And it tastes good. Allow me to share one of the tips I learned few years back on Technology website "Hacker-News" I follow regularly. It said, whenever you are reading a recipe online, and it says to mix "X" quantity of sugar, you follow all the steps exactly as written, except put "X / 4" of sugar into it. Yes just one forth of what is recommended. And the food would still taste good ! Tried it sometime, and It was one hell of a revelation. You can reduce the quantity of ingredients. If the food doesn't taste as good as it should be, you can add more latter. So this is my second thoughts on cooking.

So lately I was thinking, what exactly happens in cooking? I will summarize my answer to this as sum of three parts. These are my third thoughts on cooking.

Part A: Cooking as in making the food digestible. Over the evolution of human history, humans have got rid of the ability to digest plants as it is. We simply can't digest leaf as easily as monkeys. ;)  So you need to make the food digestible. Humans have learned that "Temperature" is our best friend to make food digestible. You simply heat stuff. Heat it for some prolonged period and it would undergo some chemical changes and magically become digestible. So far so good. Boiling that vegetables is enough to make it digestible. Frying, again a process of heating. We even optimized this process of heating, by inventing a device called "pressure cooker". Normal boiling water heats up to 100 degree Celsius only. However when inside pressure cooker, it doubles the atmospheric pressure, elevating the boiling temperature of water to ~120 degree Celsius (googled it just now). This elevated temperature/heating is what reduces the cooking time. Another thing we have to realised that different food need different time-duration at elevated temperature. Ex: Cauliflower and beans  would take twice as much time as potatoes. Pulses take 4 pressure-cooker Vissel against the 2 for rice. These numbers come up automatically within a few iterations of cooking. Just give it a try.

Part B: Creating the taste. Here we Indians are quite expert. :) We do not enjoy bare rice, or simply boiled vegetables. Gandhi Ji was known to eat only boiled food.  But for rest of us mare-mortals, taste is a pre-requisite. Remember, this part is totally optional from biological point of view. However we have been conditioned since our childhood for those delicious gravy . ha ha ha. India is the largest producer of Masala in the world. We mix so many things in the food that many American can't it traditional Indian food! However remember my second thought above. In pursuit of taste, we put so much oil in food that we harm our health. People develop cholesteryl problem and so on.... Not required. You can reduce masalas and oil quantity by half, and food will still taste good. Go ahead. Try it today.

Part C: The presentation. This is of least importance inside the household. As long as you have covered part A and Part B, you are done. Ever since I started cooking, I have been sharing the pictures of my platter in my family WhatsApp group. I would be truthful here. Only the best of photos would get shared. Say I cook 4 rotis, the one which is most round would be shared. He he he ..You remember the "Round roti cooked by newly married bride !". This is just it, the presentation. My rectangular ones are equally taste good. However "round-roti" is a cultural sensation in India.  There is still a place where this part is given equal importance. The Restaurants. They need the presentation to attract customers. After-all customers click photos, have good time there, and food MUST look good. However, if presentation is good but taste not-good, you know what would happen. ;) I remember my first date with my fiancé, on 14th Feb 2016, just one day after engagement on 13th Feb. I had booked a  premium seat in "The Garden Restaurant" in Lodhi Garden. Full of NRE (New Relationship Energy), I booked the restaurant for 4 digit INR, even though my friend Saptadip recommended against the price. That day, My fist valentine day, they had pre-decided food on the menu. One of the item was some "Red soupy thing", and reddish-fried potatoes, presented awesomely in a pearl-white plate. It was so well color coordinated with theme decoration, and lighting specifically for that day. Even though both of us were not hungry, we couldn't resist eating it. However just after few spoons, it was at the side of the table . You see, presentation of the food attracts people, but can't retain us without taste.

So, here I am. Cooking my own food, thanks to lockdown. And I have cooked quite a lot of dishes. Time for some showoff. :) Remember, only the best of photos are published. Disaster ones are not for public eyes. Ha Ha. Enjoy.

Round Roti

Fully Hui roti.

Flame cooked baigan.

My cooking table.

Roti, Dal, Sabji, Dahi, Kheera

Puri-Chhole

Typical Lunch

Breakfast on a sunny day.

Ool ki sabji

Kaddo ki sabji

Bihar special - Litti Gughni

Lazy Breakfast

Cooking veg biryani

Bachka (Fried smashed potato and fried onions)

Khichri Chokha Achar

Aaloo bhari roti and Watermelon Juice

Paratha

Sattu bhari hui roti.

Last but not the least, washing the utensils, the never ending duel with my laziness. Here is a sink-art. :D

Hope you liked. Just don't be afraid of food going horrible. It will start tasting good within a few iterations. :)

How HTTPS enabled on www.ramshanker.in

Open Terminal
~$cd Desktop
~/Desktop$git clone https://github.com/letsencrypt/letsencrypt
~/Desktop$ cd letsencrypt/
~/Desktop/letsencrypt$ sudo ./letsencrypt-auto --help
~/Desktop/letsencrypt$ sudo ./letsencrypt-auto -a manual certonly -d ramshanker.in -d www.ramshanker.in

Accept the TOS
Accept logging of IP address.

It prompts to create "http://ramshanker.in/.well-known/acme-challenge/uiVIjSLQ-_p_ajYYQUwvVebM7geXXUcrlWoVtEsA4-s" to serve " uiVIjSLQ-_p_ajYYQUwvVebM7geXXUcrlWoVtEsA4-s.EFr0e5JktDDzby1KURbGvZxi1RN_is6CAALDUcZ1zxg " then press enter

It prompts to create "http://www.ramshanker.in/.well-known/acme-challenge/vzPLIAjGJ4jPO1TABldy5dm4lQKqKWBd9X0e3qhoJXg" to serve "vzPLIAjGJ4jPO1TABldy5dm4lQKqKWBd9X0e3qhoJXg.EFr0e5JktDDzby1KURbGvZxi1RN_is6CAALDUcZ1zxg " then press enter

Then following message is displayed.
IMPORTANT NOTES:
- Congratulations! Your certificate and chain have been saved at /etc/letsencrypt/live/ramshanker.in/fullchain.pem. Your cert will expire on 2016-07-02. To obtain a new version of the certificate in the future, simply run Let's Encrypt again.

- If you like Let's Encrypt, please consider supporting our work by:
Donating to ISRG / Let's Encrypt: https://letsencrypt.org/donate
Donating to EFF: https://eff.org/donate-le

Now convert the certs generated to the format acceptable by google app engine.
~/Desktop$ sudo openssl rsa -inform pem -in /etc/letsencrypt/live/ramshanker.in/privkey.pem -outform pem | less > formated_privkey.pem
~/Desktop$ sudo less /etc/letsencrypt/live/ramshanker.in/fullchain.pem > formated_fullchain.pem

There was also a message in between to backup the private key from /etc/letsencrypt.
Now upload the fullchain.pem (pubic key) and private key to google app engine console settings.
Done. As simple as it could get.

Achhe Din

Hello India, our 16^th Parliament has crossed 100 days milestone and it is time to reflect on what changes you see around. As per latest statistics available in media, a vast majority of our nation is under 35 years of age. And for those of us still in our 20s, for the first time in our life we are having a Prime Minister whom we can TUNE-IN to. :D .

The first direct consequence I encountered was the “Cleaning Drive” we had in our own semi-sarkari office. I don’t know how many of you came to know of it? Just few days into the government, prime minister conducted a meeting of all cabinet secretaries, a copy of MOM was sent to all ministries including MoPNG to which my company EIL report. From there, the copy of MOM was sent to all Oil Sector PSU’s C&MDs for implementation. And so on ...... finally at the bottom of the chain my boss forwarding the mail in our group. J  Given the willingness and effort, that how fast communications can be, in fact should be.

The story doesn’t end there, the letter from the ministry required Chairman(s) to send a compliance report within A TARGET DATE!  Office cleanliness being of of the points. That’s why our office broke out of the annual Diwali cleaning/weeding schedule in the middle of the year. In general we can see that all the new schemes being launched are having narrower time schedule. Take the example of Jan-Dhan-Yojana, less than 6 months to include all households to our banking networks. Even if you remove all the fan-fare, we have a good start. That’s the business culture we need everywhere. That’s what our PM is capable of, India is capable of.

Second in the series of feel-goods (finally NDA 2004 slogan shaping real) is the presence of someone with the Gut required at top levels to take strong decisions. Somebody remember Planning Commission. I remember my arts stream seniors in high school Navodaya vidyalaya, discussing the merit and demerit of 1^st,  2^nd than 3^rd and so  on .... of our 5 year plans. I am not saying we don’t need it, but point is even today it functions mostly same as it used to in newly independent India.  Somebody had to take the courage to FORCE IT evolve. The king has ordered, departments would follow. One of the Deputy General Managers from our company was recently called by the MoPNG   cabinet secretaries, to explain “why they need it?, how can they have it?, and IN WHAT TIME THEY CAN HAVE IT?, ISO9001:2000 certification!” It is any body’s guess who have told all the ministries to get one :D.

Finally the 3^rd and most important point, the inspiration and positive attitude Mr. Modi is constantly spreading. India and abroad. Though too early to say, sentiment quantifier, our bourses are already picking new heights. And We have GDP growth rate accelerating. Match has started with good early score. He would get the best out of real players. The emphasis and empowerment Mr. Modi is putting on the young-India is awesome. The real strength which can transform it’s own fate given the sufficient time and opportunity.

To those of you who are still just waiting for the “अच्छे दिन”, He has a clear message, we Indians can do it and shall do it. Actually अच्छे दिन आने वाले नहीं, हम सब मिल के बनाने वाले है.  जय हिन्द।

Good Bye BattleStation...

Finally the time has come .I have overpowered the ring !
I don't know how to write it all but believe me I shall not hide anything. It's been building up for last few months, but every time the ring overpowered me .I had a change of heart. You can't imagine the extent I got addicted to battlestation, but today when I received the grade sheet of well below average, I knew the time has come. To give you an idea:- out of 48 hrs this weekend I spend more than 24 hr on Battlestation. I don't know exactly why I am writing this but than still I will .Let me recount how I joined battlestation.It was last semester summer vaccation. I would daily go to work on my site as an intern and return in the evening. Had nothing to do for the night and all. Than came one of my friend and said ... "Ramu: Let me tell you a very good game, it's easy . It is amazing. BATTLESTATION. All you have to do is this this and this...". This way I joined battlestation using his INVITE LINK.He asked to explain me about the rules and tactices ... but I said "NO, I shall read it myself !". THe jourey had began. I read everything I could find on the very same night. Went around all the port and made an excel sheet of all available items the next day. I found the wiki within first few weeks and read most of the pages (accept related to clan ) line by line. Yes I love learning things myself and fast. Those were the days when quests was not there. THose were the days when there was only one training clan .NIMBUS ( now woh ). I started learning BS really fast ... "by myself". To be precise, I didn't had an account on facebook befor I joined this game. All my friends are on orkut.com . I login to Facebook Just to play battlestation. My friend had joined LOL Goatz clan . I choosed NIMBUS after reading all the clan group pages, obviously it was the only clan soley for the purpose of training. Once I joied NIMBUS, I realized that clan war would not be feasible till at-least level 40 . Those days were so good, my friend would tell that "experienced player had told him that you should be levelling 1 by each day in 30s." .Yes I levelled much faster than that. When I was around 35, the idea of missiling came to myself and I bought 4 aerial mines . I would sink virtually everyone in 2 attack without getting any damaze to my ship most of the time.This got a good heap of gold collected with me for that level. I was so impressed with this strategy that I mailed my CM Michael Lee to DO message me everytimg there was a clan war. I told him that I am so good for this and this .. I have 5 Hand of justice... LOL.... I was a noob of clan war ! Suddenly few things changed. Our anothr CM Danial Ackabar was accused of cheating ( multi transfer ) and he left the game. Than since our clan started loosing the grip. Michael Lee's time was not synronised with me so I would miss most of the clan war. Though I was one of the most active member of the Group. Things changed so bad that he became the target of bottom feeding accusations in Lower Tiar. That was not the case by any means. So michael Lee decided to leave us as well .... shit .... that was the last thing I wanted. I was level 63 than and the game highest was around 90. Michael send a group message saying "clan master tryouts". He set the criteria of a minimum of level 70 and active membership. I didn't satisfy the level criteria, still I thought to give it a try . I replied back with details account of being most active member and suggestions regarding time based CM ship and all the thing I had learned by than. Here was the result. I was a CLAN MASTER before even attending 20 clan wars. Though I knew of all the tactices and stufs. I and my "friend" who introduced Battlestatio to me were the "Asian Zone" CMs , Alon and Jason American Zone and Kevin Europian zone. Those were one of the most exciteng days of my BS life.Those were the days when the only way to get APs was the hourly regeneration and very few through survays. Those were the days when OCHO was not there. The one in the top rankings were really knowledgeble enough, rather than having accoumulatd Brute Strength. Everyone old enough must be knowing of Michael Lee's comprensive BS guide. Once coming back to the clan point.... as Michael had instructed to kick out all in-active , I preferred to keep them .. I always triend to get them to the clan war rather than expelling them. Only those members were kicked out who had not logged in for more than 45 days !.Than came quests... The most hateful thing I find in this game. I hate them even more than OCHOs. Wanna know the reason why ?? Well, to be honest Quests are the most efficient way of gainng XP and Gold upto level 95 to be minimum. I believe that anyone who says to low level gusy that "clan war give good xp" is a plain illusion at low level ( You could escape encounters those days ) .. Yes the clan war is more fun and all but It's not the best way of Levelling up. Don't say you sink defenders and get twice xp. Sinking of defenders by low level guys is too rare an event. Than you ask them to go 50 speed and hit the FORT ! .Well for that purpose I actively encouraged my clan mates to do quests. I wanted "allready member" to gather enough power rather than hiring fresh members. We kinda quested for 2 months. By now I was so much involved in battlestatio that I would read each and every post I could on community. There were few developments going on in parallel like cooper coins and all, don't remember the precise sequence of events. Than came a time I had to go to my native home for vaccation and internet connection was not there. I coudn't miss battlestation for so long. I wanted to be part of it. I was familier with simulator by than, so I though why not make an online version of this ! I wanted to contribute back to the game I loved so much. I have always been good at programming and love doing things. SO I started learing about web desiging. I started learing HTML and JavaScript. If you look at my google search history, you would find more than 50% of the stuff related to this learning curve I was on. I learned so many things. I learned a bit of PHP. I learned a bit of flash. I learned JQuery, CSS and so many things.... Most recent of them being python programming language and google app eninge. I factoured out that to save the builds online I had to have some sort of login system . I searched again on net and bla bla bla... Why not use facebook for the same. So I learned to
code Facebook Application ! You see how deep I went into.But than everything has a dark side, all these things I learned for were taking too much of my time. My grades in the class started detoriating. My social activities came to a minimum. Most importantly I realiezed that I could use all these knowledge to SCRIPT ! .I have been long hearing of scripting . Remember that scripter who got multiple event monster sink in 1 weekend and clan war sinks and all ........ I forgot his name. He gave me the "line" of what could be done . I again started searching and learing from that point of view. I made some really good scripts... Including that simulator, noob spies, and navigation macros. I was gettting even more and more addicted to this game battlestation. I had explored teretary very few had. I wouldn't hide anything now. I regret all this too much and I am happy that finally I got rid of all this. Actually OCHOs were the much bigger motivation to script things. I knew I will never have one, but everytime I encounted an ochoer and lost , It erode my determination about playing this game honestly. Yes I didn't script for too long even if I could. but now I wouldn't hide anything. I will write everything before I finally de-activate my facebook account. So here goes the most recent version of my script :It works only in firefox. Please understand that the technology behind is very sensitive. It will ask you to allow the script for cross frame scripting.Please please don't do that on any unknown site . If you allow that kind of request than you are seriously making a big hole in your internet security. Once allowed It can be used to read all your facebook,google and any kind of data from any site you are logged in. THough the permission cease once you close the browser. Proceed on your own risk. I assure you I have nothing malacious in MY code. 2ndly I am making this availabe only temporarily since i am leaving battlestation and want everyhing behind my mind to be out and clean.Actually I was halfway making a general version for all once I learn enough about server side programming, wish I could complete this before leaving. Here it goes with the primilinary version of online simulator .Again works only in firefox.

1. My nevigation script : http://rsletter.appspot.com/connect/BattleStation2_2.html

2. My simulator : http://apps.facebook.com/battlestationhelper/

3. Fortwatch for all : http://apps.facebook.com/battlestationhelper/fortwatch

4. My noob spy detector : http://rsletter.appspot.com/connect/multidetector.html

Anyone willing to continue work on online simulator, please save the code if you want. And LL you have got to do something to stop this kinda scripts. I don't know how to do this but I am sure there are few who are scripting things, and the reason I am making them public . SO this was all about my script . I have still few things left to talk to you. First of all my multies. Well the story is little bit interesting.I was in my 70s when I wanted to bid for something in the market. It's average cost in the market was 80,000 Gold . I had been saving for an el-toro for too long . Anyone here who have bought it from the market before quests and ocho came know the value . So I was bidding for some item of 80k and .....shit man ... I put an extra zero. It became 800,000. I screamed, cried wept ... but than what was gone was gone for all . That was the moment I knew I have to have a multi to save my in this kinda situations . Though It never happened again . My multi was Explorer Gadaha ..... sorry RAGE, I planted it in your clan for few weeks. I could have planted it in any clan I wanted to but NO... I wanted to hear agian from Michael Lee, the guy I consider best in this game. I swear I tried to help to the maximum I could . My multi had a very few HP but no .. I always went sucidal on the opposite clan on your behalf .. That is kind of my nature . I am always loyal to my clan . 2 of my mate whom Michael awared the responsitibilty of being CM left NIMBUS but I never had a thought to leave . I loved you NIMBUS , the only clan i was associated with .... even thogh most of NIMBUS mates wouldn't join to clan war. I always welcomed you . Don't consider this as lines of self appraisal please , there are a number of clan warrers in sios who never left their first clan no matter how It performed. THere are people who love their clan and will do anything for it. I am sure.

THere are still few things I got to share with all before I leave.Firstly the market.
Surprisingly yesterday I found out a flaw in the system which will still allow multi transfer ! Yes it was yesterday night only. I hope LL would do something to fix it soon. Here goes the trick .... So there are generally 1000 items in the market. Let's say you wanna transrfer gold using missile Diska .There are 5 of them in the market. Well ... now what you have to don is prepare a list of all those 1000 items sequently ! if you have got enough guts than you can do it manually. For me, by late night I had succufully written an script which would scan the whole market for you and prepare the list just by 1 click.It took it usually 3 min to do so with my connection speed. Now you put your Diska into the market . Now there are 6 of them. You can see all of them but any other account can see only 5 since your missile haven't came yet to the market. Now if you prepare the list again and compare both the list, you know precisely which one is your's ! and what are the sequenct befor and after that.Now whenever it comes to market ( visible to your multi ) , you agian prepare the series and find out that sequence.THere may be other Diskas which may have landed in the markety by this time but from your sequence you know precisely which one is yours...bla.... bla...bla... I successfully tracked one of my items using this technique . But than I will not hide any sort of cheating I did or I could. 2ndly : LL you have still not followed the advices of last scripter to make the communication between server and flash player secure. This has exposed some funny loopholes. Like just by installing firebug mediater .. I can see the builds past thogh those fancy skins ! Infact why on earth your flash player still download the parts when they are hidden by skins. ! YOu could deffinately have saved some bandwidth on your server by doing so.Adding to that even the way replays are saved is riddiculas. Anyone with enough knowhow of how to send a POST request can ( theoreticall , I haven't done that yet )... save any kind of replay like windrider with 9 ruby rays sinking and 1000000000k NPC in 1 go with silliest of end of replay dialoge. Put it in practical terms and you could be easily be accused of "under the table" when you haven't done anything.Moreover even the trial version of the flash decompilers tell me the numbers/names behind your code. Nothing is encripted there , atleast it should have been obsfunced... . One can easily download all the saved replays using hid and prepare a database . I guess this is how last scripter could see the anyone's builds.

Anything else ... Hammm ... Nothing ... My mind is empty now. I have told you guys all that can be done or I have done/cheated. I am sorry if I hurt anyone in this long period of 1 year .Now again I don't know what to write. Literally I am weeping when I look back at how much time I spend/wasted on battlestation. I learned a lot of things for it and missed a lot.
My grades had never been so low in my life. :( but still in this last post I will give special thanks to Adrian , Michael Lee, Alan Hsu, Kevin Vielswiki,Lisa, tim86, Alon Wilson, Soul eater, Kevin Kostly ,LL and my *friend* TY. Ohhh I haven't written some of my minor contributions to BS.. 1. A minor bug fix in Market 2. Now you can put any link as your chat link against those early meebo days .. yes I made that suggestion first. and most recently dis-appearing of scrolbars ! Timothy , Max Power and jamie had been fun as well . Ohhhhh and I will never forget the lines from Bram .... "what's the point of continuing to play the game when the goals and motivation are lost ".I shall de-activate my facebook account after few days, all ready removed all friends and posts... I don't know what shall happed to my posts once I do so .. so I thougt I would write
in a Google Doc. To all the upcomig wired replies , mostly flamatory in nature... feel free tospeak up your mind. I feel sorry to myself for all the things I did and wasted my time... I am sure this game would continue without me as it is has been without many of very old players. but than I have spoken up everything I could remember.I swear myself guity of scripting and cheateing. .There is nothing to hide now from you ... nothing secret ..... nothing Under The Table.

My heart is light and warm again....

Good Bye Battlestation !
Engineer ramu

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi : Parallel thoughts

I used to write 1/2 line comment after watching each movie. It was around 9:00 pm today I started watching this superb movie *Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi * . Not much time had passed when a though flashed in my mind. Atul once had advised me not to watch so called * love story *. They seem to distract our mind according to him . I tend to accept this... ok what if I note down each and every though that came to my mind while watching the movie. On the same note, I started notepad and began this *experiment*. I set the vlc to "always on top" status so that I could watch the movie while writing there. I don't need to see the key-board while writing anything as I learned the touch typing techinques last to last summer . I am presenting the content of the notepad after I finished the movie as it is ...ie. without any editing. Maybe you will want to re-watch the movie along with the lines.



read on...


********************************************************************************


Now I am imagining the moment I might propose someone to join the dancing schols.


How interesting , I have been leatinginf all these songs ( currently training soing going on ) . throughout my vaccation without realising I haven't even watched the movies.I quite liked the repeatation of this songs on radio mirhi on my father's musi system. I shouldn't have writtern "my father's ".


"wo banda hi kya jo nache na gaye " ..... damn it ... I am remembering all those moments I have been imagining myself perfoming in various events like "cult nights"



I ham having no idea who will win this golgappe race.


and now I am laughing uncontrably on the winner , enjoying it.



starting of bike seen : Damn it .


his friend telling them about "boy" tips : I don't know why but I am seriously looking for a way to make my father watch this movies.


*irriatting hai ji t mai turant aya ji *


I seem too interesting to know the answer of " ek laki kya chahati hai ".


*to hi to jannat meri song started ", .... the 1st though came to my mind is that I should start writing a story . I don't know how the story will proceed but thI seem to know the starting ... "One guy and One girl are walking together ".
2nd though on hearing this song : " I have head this song as well on radio mirchi.



something is coming to my mind about blogging this writhign all this epperience propogation through a blog.

( song still going on )






what a magic " I love you ".



she is thinking "mujhe aapko pahale hi bata dena chahiye tha ..I am married "... damn it .. she said the same.



seems like she is having love with that guy.


I reapeated abouve script because I missed the dialog while writing above lines.



damn vlc is having trouble while syncronising the sound and video after I disturbed the continuous playing in reapeating above dialog . Now waitig to get to the point while vlv fast forwards with 8x speed.


I closed vlc and started windows ;media players



I am recalling the phrase .."Even god doesn't know what a girl want ".




shuri raaj pe hawi ho raha hai .



I guess "she can't thing of what to do ".




hadd fight yar , feel aa gaya ..


lagta hai larki ne use "pahachan liya ".



"please , please "....... wo majbur lag rahi hai ..



mere dimag me wichar itne fast a rahe hai ki mai parally like nahi pa raha hu. sayad next time mujhe voice recorder on kiye rahana chahiye.

wo sabkuch karti hai par sayad wo usse pyar nahi karti.




wo ghar me itna kaam kyo kar rahi hai , ye uski majburi hai kya kuchh aur.



wo larki raj ko apna love batane ke liye bhag gayi movie theater se ... Mera ye guess sahi nikala .


perhaps he knows what she is going to says.



sahi dialog : kuchh logo ko rab se apni khuchi chhinani parti hai .



uska pyar pane ke liye sayad wo apna job nahi chor de.


aab mai pause kar ke ye file like raha hu ... seen hai , wo apne dost ko kal ke liye bata raha hai ... dost ne bola "to pagal ho gaya hai " .. and I am thinking it's all about self rworld.



again pause : pata nahi saam ko ( abhi 11:44 pm ho raha hai ) atul kis sense me kar raha tha ... "movie dekh lo , usme tumhe apna past present aur future dikhaye dega... " ... gunny is the thingkg... no it's not funny... is that possible ... my wife escaping with some one ... :::::: is it possible , that "main kisi ko bhaga le jaunga ". ha le'ts see the movie.


pata nahi aage kya hoga.kahi aisa to nahi wo sucide kar le.


""""""""" mai sucide kar lu""""""""""

mujhe bhi rab dikha dijiye ... ke bad use shuri dikhayi dia . usne bhagane ka khayal chor diya sayad. sad wo shuri se payar karne lagi.




I accept that i feared the 1st part ... kahi meri wife!

muhe unme rab dikhta hai .


now my parents must watch this movie...... dialog " mujhe maf kar do raj".


dialog " now welcome mister raj "... kahi aisa to nai ki raj shuri ke dress me aa raha ho.

dance started .... mere man ke pahale sabd ... "sahi yar"... and the happy feeling.


the world is more real than my fantacies of love.


ohh ek bar fir mai khane ke pahale lene wali medicing bhool gaya ... koi bat nahi abhi h i le leta hua.



pHOTO album chal raha hai ... aur mai apna ye blog close kar raha hu.



STORY OF A COMMON MAN ENDS.

I LOVED THIS STORY. SIMPLY LOVED.


*************************************************************************


Thx for readig this wired message.

My experiments with maths ...

Today I finished reading a book " The UNKNOWABLE " by Gregory J. Chaitin author of "The Limits of Mathematics " ....... I found that author has quite similar psychatric setup like me . Initally (his early research day ) he is interested in physics and concludes that maths is the key to unlock the mystry of Nature via physics . I started stressing upon maths on the very same lines few months back . He is interested in programming , so am I . He enjoys maths , so do I .

Hammmm , good enough . The author is a great mathematician and has done tremendous work about ramdomness , incompleateness and complexity . Offf you are you getting bored !! Actually I was to blog about how I came to this book / personality . Way back to my higher secondary school I loved prime numbers and wrote independently some fundamental programs . I remember running one of my program for few minutes , which told me that there are about 6000 prime numbers upto 64000 .. I discovered ( same thing which was known even to centuary old mathematican ) that we need only to test upto square root of a number to test it's primality . Well enough about primes .......
So here I was , looking for something in library and suddenly I came accross the book "MATHEMATICAL MYSTRIES : the magic and beauty of numbers " . I turned a few pages and found something about Ramanujam and some intriguing things ... I started reading it . First few chapters were quite interesting about history/beauty of mathematics. The author mentioned about "Stephan Hawking " being told by his respective publisher that EVERY EQUATION YOU WRITE IN YOUR BOOK WILL HALF THE SELLING !!!!!!!! .Then author justified his stand on this , and things like that . I found it interesting and started reading this book in leasure time , chapter by chapter . Almost all the chapters accept few were interesting . I recall : " Statememt A emply B " , this relationship about 'A' and 'B' was really great ( I am not using the exact numerical format for reasons anyone can guess ) and give some beautiful expressions . It generated a lot of highly symmetrical looking functions and things like that ...... Then that book told me to tie my seatbelt !! Something was going to comeout . Suddenly the book showed that same A~B relation gives

1 = sqrt( 0 + sqrt( 0 + sqrt( 0 + sqrt( 0 + sqrt( 0 + sqrt( 0 + ..................)))))
ooooo my god . How on earth !!!!

I moved on . Then author told me that he has kept the best thing for last (chapter) . I started reading the last chapter "Into the stratosphere" . I remember pausing for few minutes that "It has been proved that not everything is provable ". There exists truths whcih can neither be proved nor disproved. This was the consequence of the result by Godel (known as Mr Why in his childhood ) that either "Every truth is not provable " or "The whole mathematics is wrong ". What a beautiful blend of philosphy and mathematics ...... This is how I came accross the famous Incompleteness theorem . Once tested opon the flaver , I wanted more and I got hand on this book which I finished today , with more questions then answers .

A child imagination with Maths.

This article about my childhood is realy-realy childish .

I believe children are always Imaginative .They always try to understand everything (unlike we past teenagers in the lectures hall) .They keep on asking what is this, how ,why etc ..

U must have enjoyed story of kings and queens otherwise of prince and princes. Kings are always powerful, living in beautiful palace end commanding and everything..................
I do not no whether u have dreamed ever of being a king or not, but I did .I IMAGINED my self a king, I tried to find how to become a king .

Well u might have started wondering what is so unique in all this, is it worthy of being a blog.
Main point is something like this. My father have a very good secondary school math’s background . He always tried to install maths in me very enthusiastically. And my response!!! Here it is somewhat unique .I imagined (remember just 8 years old) the only way of becoming a king is to learn more and more MATHS. I associated Kings with some sort of personality who is very-very good at maths , whose question no one can solve in his empire except him . This is the way I fascinated maths in my childhood. And the results were really pleasant I was always maths topper in my class. Having a good primary concepts, it stretched slightly longer. This continuity was broken (once and permanently) only when I passed standard 7 and more interesting thing started infiltrating my mind .I lost my interest in maths!!!!!!!