The reality of living in the times of Coronavirus became even more evident as my shelter life in an OYO room hotel where I mostly slept ate and listened to youtube.com videos was disrupted by medical and health workers. The morning was disrupted by two puny ladies who wore medical white suits made of virus-proof material along with big white surgical masks. I walked up to the reception area to find out what they were up to .” We are quarantining every employee of the hotel they will not be allowed to go out for two weeks, we will monitor them .” She explained her mission for being here. They stamped the hands of the cook and the cleaners and noted their numbers and names along with other details.

“ No not you, you are guest .” She replied as I also asked two to be stamped,” You can test me I want to know if I am Corona free .” I gave myself to be tested .” No no not now testing later now only quarantine .” She went on to say. Their white suits made them look like astronauts rather than medical workers.

I walked up to them to take photographs and was almost shooed away,” Distance sir maintain social distancing no touching only namaste .” She said asking me to move back. I managed to click some snaps anyways.

I have the corona app on my mobile which keeps reminding me how safe I am and whether there are people around me with the infection. Check out my snaps with them. The stress is empty again today after the reopening of booze shops, states have gone back and shut things down again, there are restrictions on home delivery as well, as most people still remain confused as to how safe it is to venture out. It is like people need to be reprogrammed as to how to live in this new paradigm and not everyone is finding the going easy.

I will be soon moving into a better hotel got it at a 50% discount rate for two months at Juhu. The view will be better and I am sure the service too, as it is it will be much longer when flights are opened up froM Mumbai as infections have increased again.

Prices of essentials have gone up and cigarette cost has gone up 200%. Milk and curd products are in short demand as people also begin to hoard essentials. The poor are being fed by the charity and the government but if they don’t go back to work the situation will only get worse. The government is getting all Indians stuck abroad to buy special flights this week.

As I stand beside my room window staring at empty buses and auto’s pass by, some shops are open but there are no customers. I do see few people walking down the street with bangs in Tehri hands trying to get somewhere. Friends say it is better to do some jogging and brisk walking if one can get some space as putting on weight is the easiest thing to do at these times, due to boredom, anxiety, or otherwise. Job losses are mounting up and companies are trimming staff and salaries. Uncertainty and anxiety about the future are increasing domestic violence. But the virus goes on relentlessly as places that have opened up expect wave two to come soon.

The states across the country had allowed stand-alone liquor shops to open from morning to evening time at the orange and green zones marked in the cities. Shops in crowded markets and malls had to remain shut. To get the liquor major cities saw people line up in huge queues stretching across the pavements and streets. Even as the states had put 70% surcharge on the price of liquor their were millions of takers and the liquor was sold out. Unfortunately, no one adhered to proper social distancing as people jostled, pushed, and shoved to get their bottle.

No one maintained a safe distance people were nudging and pushing each other. The government had stipulated that people were face masks, payments were to be handled online, so no touch of notes, and liquor to be taken in own bags. In spite of the guidelines, there was a mad rush for booze. This relaxation has costed some states like Delhi and cities like Mumbai which have seen a surge of COVID cases and deaths post opening of shops and some relaxation.

The government has asked for the shops to shut down again and rolled back the relaxation due to the virus surge. This cat and mouse game will continue to be payed as relaxation of lockdown is bound to increase infection. The government thought it is better to give booze to the masses at least they can forget their plight and misery and would for some time lose their worries in alcohol.

Also, the extra revenue due to the surcharge would help as state governments across the country are losing sales tax revenue. Their coffees are stained due to needing the food and transportation needs of the migrant laborers and the unemployed day wage earners, who are eating into the state exchequer. The booze sale has given them the added excise revenue they badly need, abet leading to a rise in infection. The government has kept health issues on the back burner and totally taken a political decision on this opening of liquor shops.

One other decision of allowing e-commerce giants like Flipkart and amazon to do home delivery of essential products only and the other nonessential products they are letting people buy those form local trader shops. That is a political decision to safeguard Indian retailers even though the delivery mechanism of the commerce platforms in quick, efficient, and safe from a health point of view.

It is important to say that until there is a nationwide drop in COVD 19 infections all the decisions that the government should take regards opening up and the economy should put the health of the people above all else and then rationally take a call or make a decision. That is not being shown currently.

The revenue generated from liquor sales is over 3.1 lakh crores for the Indian Government. More then sixteen crore people drink at least  6 l of liquor a year in India. Uttar Pradesh alone earned 31000 crores from the sale of alcohol.

With the lockdown on it has become important to stop the progress of the Virus and keep citizens safe and uninfected. In an effort to achieve that the government is using a contact tracking application called the Arogya Setu app to alert people about being in the proximity of someone who is infected or a carrier of the COVID-19 virus.

The app can be downloaded on I phone or android through google play and once installed it uses the location data of the user and the contact number to map it with a central database that carries the details of all the infected patients as well as the red zones. This alerts the user if he has been in the proximity of an infected user in the past 14 days. If so the user can then get himself tested or visit the hospital for a test.

But activists have seen the app with suspicion saying that it is just a control tactic form the government who wants the important user data and wants to track and keep a watch on the movement of its citizen. The data can be used to harass, punish people, and especially journalists who speak against the policies of the government.

Activists like Arundhati Roy has expressed grave concern on this being a spy application that the government has pushed on the people.

In terms of contact tracing git is being used in the UK, Singapore, and the US as well to isolate and quarantine infected people and inform others in the community to stay away from certain areas and people who are infected.

The video conferencing and video meeting app called Zoom has been breaking all records for downloads and has amassed billions of customers in a post COVID scenario. As the entire world is under lockdown people are using this application for conducting office meetings and Vedic con fencing with remote clients over their phones and tablets. The application has been trending in India for the past few weeks with over 450000 downloads a day. This has made its customer base skyrocket. So what is the Zoom app and how can one benefit from it. Well in a work from the home environment it is a percent app to video conference and does an official meeting on. It has a very simple and easy to understand user interface that is its biggest USP. The app copies all your contacts from your mobile and you can log into it through your Gmail and Facebook IDs / Once in you can send invitations for meetings to your work and office team and start doing. With instant screen sharing, crystal clear audio, facility saves meetings, and data you can download the app form apple and google play stores.

Founded by Eric Yuan in 2011 in San Jose it has taken off during the lockdown phase as it is proving to be a cost-effective and easy to use video meeting application. There has been concern about data privacy and it’s safety as many people have complained of hacking and stolen meeting data.

It has been used by many government officials and has been a popular tool for small businesses. Many big companies like apple and google have warned customers not to download it due to data privacy issues, none the less the app is doing well and the downloads have increased significantly in India which is the largest market for the application and its founder.

It has a very effective share screen facility and you can invite many people at the same time to a conference meeting. Educational institutes are using it to conduct and impart online classes. Currently, the company is valued at 40 billion dollars and Eric has moved into the Forbes list of billionaires with a net worth of 7.5 Billion dollars. The company went public with an IPO April last year and was valued at 16 billion dollars on day one itself.

Zoom is compatible with Windows, Linux, iOS, macOS and Android platform one can do meetings with 100 participants for as long as 40 minutes at a stretch. You can get additional features at a cost of $ 15 to $ 20 per month subscription fee. So it is an inexpensive proposition for large office meetings and even online seminars, product launches and talks and panel discussions.

The company has to look into data theft and privacy concerns as a lot of companies would not want sensitive meeting information liked to competition or other agencies. As of now, Zoom has taken off in India in the post lockdown scenario and it looks like it will grow as people adapt to a new work environment.

I have just closed a book deal with a web-series producer who has bought the right to make a web series for OTT platforms on the story of my book. The issue arose due to the lockdowns we were not able to sign the agreement document because the courts were closed, although the document and the terms and conditions had been vetted by our prospective lawyers and we had shaken hands on the payment sum, we were not able to sing physically and solemnize the agreement and the contract due to no legal paper or stamp paper availability as the courts were shut and would take time to reopen. The delay was excruciating as I had a good sum riding on the agreement. The solution came to me in the form of the DocuSign app, which I had used to sign my contact with another book publisher Partridge Penguin.

I downloaded the app form the net and watches the promotion and operational video that took me to a 30 day free trial of the document signing application. It was very simple just drag and drop the PDF file of your agreement into the user interface window after you have created a company account and filled the relevant fields. You can then drop the signature tab into the document and create files for others who have to sing the document with you, like my producer in this case who was buying the story rights of my book. After assigning names and emails of the recipient you can automatically send the document to the co-signed.

One can create their own digital signature, use interesting fonts, stamps, and even incorporate the company logo into the document itself.

There is a place to save all signed documents and track the progress of who has signed them and when. After the 30 day trial, you can buy the business pro package at the cost of $ 40 per month or the single package for $ 10 a month depending on how many people sign a single document and how many documents you need to sign in a month.

So now the agreement has gone to the producer for him to add his digital signature and then wire in the singing amount into my account as mentioned in the agreement. Both have a digital copy of the agreement saved to refer to in case of dispute and one copy goes to the respective lawyers for digital filing.

A perfectly simple application to full fill agreements in the digital world.

Let us see now the lockdown has been extended once again, this time for another two weeks the third extension. The government is trying to come up with guidelines to reopen the cities, dividing them into red, green, and orange zones. But major cities like Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore have red zones all over all of the Mumbai districts come under the red zone. So how can the lockdown be lifted here they have the airports the metros and the buses. The whole thing about the virus is that it is restricting the movement of people and Human interaction, including personal touch and greetings. It is stoping us to congregate in one place as the virus can be spread at a distance also.

This means work from home stay more indoors and confined to your narrow communities. The virus is changing the symbols of modern and urban success and asking us to re-assess our values of good, success, prosperity, and development. It is going to change the way we intact with each other and aseptically how business and commerce are run and governed. Impacting global supply chains, it will force communities to grow, make, and consume on their own restricting trade amongst countries.

People will have to learn to live with little and essentials this will lead to a more frugal life and an aesthetic way of living where every household works from home and with minimum commuting. We will rely on technology more heavily and I envisage an AI lead world, where we will interact with each other virtually through chat apps.

There will be a more sense of community, charity amongst people as the peel will have more time for their family and loved ones. Office stress that generally persists will disappear as workers will bee more relaxed, the only upshot will be that domestic violence will increase as family stay clustered and shut in their homes.

As long as the government is able to feed people things will work, so farming has to be allowed to go on and so the availability of essential services.

The environment will be coal and we will be living in a pollution-free world with freshwater and clean air. Kids will be educated online in homes with people becoming more close to nature thus more close to themselves and to existence. The per games of the politicians and rich businessmen will diminish as they will be the ones hardest hit. We would have to learn to operate in a restricted mobility economic scenario.

For me, it would be like living in a pre liberalization scenario, where people may be riding bikes rather than traveling in buses and trains or crowded taxies and autos.

I have now spent more than seven weeks in Mumbai, came here at the cusp of the virus hit and have weathered the tide of the lockdown, seeing reports of the virus as it spreads from country to country spreading death and doom, body bags on the roads and suicide rates on the rise the world has gone into a recession and I am playing the game of musical chairs, this is the third time we have been asked to shift from our hotel property. First, from  Villa Parle, we shifted to Andheri East Chakala and now we are being moved to another OYO room property in Andheri West. The news is that we are falling in the red zone as the infection is high in this part of Mumbai, infect Mumbai has had a spike in infected people and today there were almost 184 positive cases of the virus.

I am sure by the time this is over I would have been moved to over half a dozen properties. The virus is affecting us all, throwing our lives upside down and we have to learn innovative ways of living at a time like these.

People are calling for more testing to be done, consumer confidence is at an all-time low and people are scared to come out of their houses even when the lockdowns are over .3rd of May is the date now, but I feel the lockdown will continue even further. I will just get shifted from one hotel room to the other, I guess even if I try I cannot get out of the nomadic life that I am destined to live.

The food is generally vegetarian nowadays and maybe a new place and a new hotel room would be good for me and maybe help me get back to my meditation days. The news is full of news on how people are getting frustrated with the lockdown and some are even coming out on the roads disobeying the government, stars and celebrities are using this time to deliver their public service messages to the people at large.

With suicide rates up it is important to remain cheerful and occupied at times like these remember how submits to the will of God will get through these uncertain times. A vaccine seems some time away and the lockdown looks to continue for some time, there is the voice of optimism, amidst people professing doom and gloom, politicians show optimism and the health fraternity show caution, restaurant and this is not over yet attitude. Conflicting views and directives surface it seems everyone has a view an opinion on the times we find ourselves in yet no one knows what actually will unfold, who knows this lockdown might just keep going on indefinitely even if it is officially lifted will people feel confident enough to come out of their houses until a vaccine is discovered which cures the dreaded virus and when will we get that, no one knows its all in the distant future. As of now, this is a new reality and it might just stay that way indefinitely. Will this locked out the state of existence will be the new normal a new paradigm we’re mankind will have to adjust to find innovative ways of living with these conditions. A world where man is trapped indoors amidst fear, uncertainty, with visions of death and disease, with thoughts of mistrust and with rules of strict social distancing. It is a more loveless a sate if people can’t get close to each other, touch and feel are a no now.

More isolation more introspective life where people have to live in isolation in a sort of exile with a different set of rules. It will eat time for us to change our mindset, routines, and habits to live by the rules of this new shifted paradigm where the virus plague is a permanent reality, but if this continues slowly we will get used to it as our behavior, habits, and mindset will adjust. So what works for us here well the climate and the ecosystem has blossomed the air is clean and good the water the rivers the snow the first and the animals are all dancing for joy. An old uncle of mine says he goes for his walks inside his colony in the morning and I see some morn sign walkers from outside my bedroom window, they sure must be happy to see empty roads no noise pollution and lots of space and air. On one side the virus is taking lives on the other side the climate is improving we are eating healthier and living stress-free lives working from home, that itself must be saving lives and making people live longer. Its the way you look at things, yin and Yan positive and negative. As of now, I am getting ready to shift for the third time into another OYO property.

I have been doing. A lot of Binge watching of YouTube videos these days as I have all the time in the world. I have been watching video’s of guru’s politicians, thinkers and statesmen alike, a lot of these people have begun to seep into my writing as characters in my stories and books. I do make changes here and there but they give me a reference point to start. I have built a few in my stories and given them a texture and an aura and then I play with them. People weave them into my book and start and then give them a shape and make them come alive on paper. These are real people I watch on YouTube and learn from and hear talk day in and day out they are a great raw material for interesting characters fro my story. Rather than watch films and web-series to get ideas I prefer YouTube videos where people are real and more alive they can be etched better into stories.

It is a great space to get inspirational spiritual guru, politicians, spokespersons and head off sate like characters, some good writers and creative types are also there. Blogging requires a lot of storytelling and you can take a lot of that by watching YouTube videos and build their talk also in the story, you get a good idea from there talk about there mannerisms and bent of mind also there beliefs and philosophies.

So get inspired and watch some YouTube build some exciting ebooks and tell some fantastic stories.

The Virus has impacted the world and it has been near four months of misery lockdowns, sickness, dash and failing economy the doom is apparent as societies and countries try and deal with the changing landscape of people having to operate from home and with travel restricted, all travel has been effected badly this hotel booking, airlines, hotels, resorts, or locations every kind of travel has fallen dramatically around the world. Millions of Jobs have been lost in the travel and tourism industry and it has had an impact on travel blogging. They are seeing their projects postponed and sponsors backing out, only is tight, most bloggers are writing about the coronavirus and what people should do at home to spend their time productively. Hotel booking has dropped more than 30% and the airline is cutting staff as they begin to bleed due to no international travel.

Bloggers being part of the gig economy and not the mainstream are still used to coping with uncertainties and are better placed than most to cope with these changing times that could last longer than expected. Travel bloggers need to change their thought process and make engaging content that educates the readers on the times of the Coronavirus and also gives them tips to stay safe and healthy during these times. Since there will not be much traveling and tourism for months on end bloggers need to find new content to represent the strange and uncertain times that the world has been thrown into due to the pandemic. An online travel website and hotel booking portals have also seen a huge loss of traffic and the only industries thriving are Energy, Food, Pharma and Media, this is all the basic necessities essential just to keep us alive. The rest of all the other industries have fallen sharply by almost 30% to 40%.

It is the worst time to travel anywhere and I recommend a strict lockdown routine. Meditate, read, write, watch Netflix and chat to friends old friends not new ones, you just might get a new insight. Live like a hermit or a monk just with the bare minimum at times like this leaning towards spirituality will help. Save money and valuable resources because this could be a longer haul than expected. But remain cheerful and make fun uplifting content, try advice more than preach. The movement will be severely restricted and there will be a deep rescission so time will be hard we know that the rise in domestic violence proves the fact that people are tense and job losses are mounting this is creating pressure on the family as a unit. This is the time to stay connected with real friends and family and show solidarity towards others.

Till then give readers hope and educate them on the new landscape.

With affluence and incomes rising and so much available in terms of choices and experiences, on the rise is the trend of destination weddings. These are grand and lavish experiential weddings at exotic locations and with a charm and flavor which is very personalized. Chennai and its nearby lands are a perfect location for an out of the way wedding, it’s beaches of Maha Bhuleshwar are the perfect way to marry. With candlelight dinner on the beach with the waves lapping up at your feet, dancing wine and great seafood this is a perfect place to get wed. intercontinental Maha Bhuleshwar Resort Chennai is a stone architecture to marvel. It has a huge banquet space which can host a reception for 250 guests. The lily pool is something to marvel at and the resort is famous for its cocktails and beach parties.

Vivanta by Taj – The Fishermans Cove is another great resort property which is run by the Taj and has it’s signature touch and class is also blessed with great architecture and structural design. They have a huge banquet space and beach space to execute a perfect wedding. The specialty is the high quality of their seafood especially the lobsters. They have just renovated the lobby and their cottages come with amazing views. It is one of the best Banquet halls in Chennai for a wedding.

Chennai is a modern city with its international airport and excellent service and amenities, it has a tropical climate and is home to many luxury hotels and five-star resorts. The food is a class apart and its traditional food is a delight. It has a huge coastline with the Bay of Bengal and is full of pictures of beaches with sun-kissed weather and torquiest water. They form the perfect locations for a beach wedding.  Then you have Mahabalipuram, a temple town one hour drive away from the city. The great architecture from the Pallava Dynasty is something to be seen and admired. This unique temple town is a perfect place to tie the knot and has some great photogenic locations with some breathtaking views. Along with the Fisher-mans Cove, you also have the Radisson Blu and the InterContinental Chennai. Chennai has a lot of services to organize a wedding and it is easy to hire wedding planners, makeup artists and photographers intact most hotels can organize the entire affair for you.

Chennai East coast road is one of the most scenic roads in the city it is a place which has not been explored much unlike the other famous beaches like Elliot Beach. You can also see the Chola Mandal artist village and the Muthu Kunda lake they are worth seeing. But the untouched, still virgin East coast road has many resorts and hotels for one to tie the knot.FarmHouse weddings are also a rage if you want a rustic and more rugged feel to your wedding with a live band and a lot of noise and music. The farmhouses provide spacious lawns where guests can enjoy their delightful cuisine. Sagarika Gardens and Laxmi Gardens are some of the famous farmhouse resorts to have a classic destination wedding.

You can have a heritage wedding at the Daksha Chitra Museum in mikado overlooking the Bay of Bengal is a perfect heritage wedding location one must consider. Here old Chennai homes were broken down and rebuild into museums the vibe is perfect for a heritage wedding as the place is responsible for preserving the cultural heritage of all four states in south India.

Armed with all this information you know you are spoiled for choice in Chennai, so next time when you tie the knot do look southwards.