CURRENT MISSION

Live Life With Passion!

ABOUT ME

*DISCLAIMER: This profile needs to be read with Hoppipolla by Sigur Ros playing in the background. If you can't find it on youtube here's a link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnAwPeqrdAk

I run an agritech startup focused on creating sustainable, affordable plant based proteins. I have exited three startups before. My first exit was a foodtech startup which was sold for a six figure when I graduated from university and the other was a healthcare non-profit which was taken over by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The most recent was a fashion and beauty startup where we worked with the biggest labels in the world and figured out distribution strategies for them to penetrate across middle class Asia.

I love travelling. I have hitch hiked across India from Punjab to Chennai in a week, swam around a greek island (Crete) and spent a wonderful month working at christmas shops in the wonderfully illuminated streets in Nuremberg.

I would ideally love to make documentary films about people and their customs and travel to distant lands and document diets and happinesa. Professional traveler and observer of humanity.

PHILOSOPHY

When you are born everybody around you is smiling and you are crying. Make sure that in your lifetime you make it so that when you leave everybody is crying and you are smiling. Ancient Vietnamese proverb (roughly translated)

I am a dualist, liberal, slightly utilitarian, straight pseudo android.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I want to impart whatever scraps of knowledge that I have gained but more importantly learn about other people and their cultures. This generic statement might sound stale to seasoned ears but I really believe that institutionalised learning is a poor substitute to empirical wisdom gained through socialising and engaging with others.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Surfed a lot of friend's couches but fresh to the world of couchsurfing in the internet.

Interests

Cricket,
Rugby pro. Dabble in and like inventing new sports as long as they are high energy.

Writing tragedies and comedies, writing short stories, acting - playing the amoral, dominant Alex DeLarge (clockwork orange) in the Fringe was quite cool. I have been living in character my whole life.

• writing
• documentaries
• acting
• wine
• politics
• movies
• traveling
• hiking
• sports
• cricket
• rugby
• economics

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies: Waking Life, Schindler's List, Rashomon, The Lives of Others, Borat, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Inside Job, Fog of War, Cashback, Yellow Submarine, Don't Look Back and many many more. since the silver screen literally brought me up the list is non exhaustive.

Music: Anything and Everything. From Bon Iver to Filthy Dubstep. From Tupac to Nina Simone. From Chet Baker and Miles Davis to Ray Charles. Jimi Hendrix to David Bowie. Say Anything to Cage the Elephant. Coldplay to Muse. (ok. you get the point!)

Now Playing: Justice followed by Rodrigo Y Gabriela

Books: Notes from Underground, A Week in December, White Tiger, 100 years Of Solitude, The Black Swan, Between the Assassinations, Picture of Dorian Gray, Khaled Hosseini, Chinua Achebe, Samuel Beckett's plays, L'Etranger,The Life of Pi, Shantaram. I am under the habit of reading something before going to bed every night and this is ironic because sometimes the light reading has turned out to be so interesting that I have ended up awake till dawn so there has been a lot of literature which I am not able to credit as I have enjoyed them during the reading of it but had not been able to remember the names of them after.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

- Sunset in Goa.
- Mumbai Terrorist attack victim families holding an anniversary vigil in the attack sites for the deceased and the strength and the emotion emanating from the 6000 strong crowd gathered was so powerful. After the ceremony people giving each other hugs and holding up candles. It was incredibly moving.

Teach, Learn, Share

Never make eye contact with another man when eating a banana unless you want to send him a suggestive message.

Always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them more.

KEEP HOPE ALIVE BECAUSE THERE IS NO OTHER OPTION.

Most importantly if you have to open a non screwtop bottle of wine (those french have never heard of screwtops) and you don't have a corkscrew. Wrap the bottom of the bottle with a towel and keep lightly hitting the towel wrapped bottom against an even hard surface like a wall and after a few minutes hey presto you have got yourself an opened bottle of wine albeit you have to pull out the cork after it has come out significantly otherwise you will spill the wine on your carpet. Corkscrews are for wimps.

What I Can Share with Hosts

Love, Entrepreneurial wisdom and Proteins.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Cambodia, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Haiti, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Laos, Lithuania, Malaysia, Malta, Morocco, Oman, Poland, Serbia, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, United States, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

India, Italy, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States