CURRENT MISSION

Travelling across Europe, both to see the cuture and history of the European nations by looking at the monuments and museums etc, and also meeting different types of people and interacting with them so as to allow myself to gain a better perspective ..

ABOUT ME

I was born in Mumbai, India. This has been mentioned before, but it Mumbai has played a vital role in making me what I am now. I studied in Mumbai till the 10th standard (around 16-17 years of age) and I was brought up in an environment which was a mixture of a conservative Indian culture and a more open international culture. Then I went to study in places like Kota (2 years) and Kanpur (4 years now, 1 year left) and there I had to adapt to a new environment where the people were more conservative in many aspects and basically had different customs and beliefs. This was very interesting for a while, but now I find that I cant reconcile myself with permanently living in that sort of gender-biased and conservative environment.

Luckily, I was provided an opportunity to visit Germany for an internship for 2 months while I have summer vacations in India. This gave me a chance to visit new places and meet new people, just as I felt I was beginning to stagnate. Now that I am here in Europe, I want to make maximum use of this opportunity and see and meet as many people of different cultures as I can.

As an individual, I think that I am a person who is open and eager to experience new things (well except for non-vegetarian food - I'm willing to try almost anything vegetarian, but I dont have meat) and I absolutely love meeting new people and grilling them about their understanding about things I am interested in. I have been told I am not very good at small talk, or socializing, but I do not seem to have had problems in making friends anywhere I have been to.

PHILOSOPHY

I generally prefer to live and let live, allow people to do their own things and try not to interfere too much.

I also like to believe that it is through the contradictions in the way people act, behave and talk that we are able to see the core of what they are and what they need and the way they will behave. I dont really believe that you can tell a lot about a person with the first glance.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I am very new to CS Project, so I havent really seen much of what occurs here. I would like to host people, but it would be much easier for me to host people while I am in my university.

However I would love to meet new people visiting India, or even CS'ers who are currently in Europe so as to swap stories and learn about different experiences.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I am extremely new to this community, and havent had much experience with any CSers yet, except for some friends from India who have also joined this community and recommended it to me.

Interests

Music - broad spectrum across all genres, mostly English though.
I love reading, although I prefer reading fantasy novels over other novels, and find it very tough to enjoy most non-fiction novels
I also play some computer games and read manga online, started both as a way to spend time and go through phases in which I am highly addicted to either one and then completely stop playing games/reading manga for some time.
Related to travelling, I am interested in understanding the evolution of the culture of a place and its people over time, by looking at the museums, natural beauty, historical monuments and other tourist attractions. I am also interested in understanding how people think and react when they are from different cultures and backgrounds.

Currently, I am very interested in, and am also doing a project somehow related to, how people in Europe look at their Economic systems, broadly classified as Capitalist systems, and the performance of their economies. I am not convinced of the potential of growth and the supposedly successful results India has seen in the present and the recent past and want to see if there is some sort of similar feeling here or not.

• culture
• performing arts
• beauty
• environment
• dining
• vegetarian
• reading
• traveling
• socializing
• music
• history

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, Bhutan, Cambodia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Macao, Netherlands, Russian Federation, Switzerland, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

Germany, India