Short, tagline type description: A cooking/baking-interested cat lover with a serious coffee and movie addiction who is concerned with sustainability, environmental justice and urban development.

Currently living in India where I've been involved with work related to sustainability and climate change - first in waste management and now in agriculture. Soon though, I'll be moving to the UK to study for a PhD.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I like to meet people and talk, I love good conversation, interesting questions and people with stories to share - if they're complemented with coffee, chai, a meal, dessert or an alcoholic beverage, all the better. I am happy to host whenever and wherever I can. I enjoy talking politics - particularly sustainability, social and environmental justice, urban development, feminism - with people who come from diverse backgrounds from myself.

I love showing whatever city I live in, especially to people who care and are curious to see more of places they visit than just the top-10 sites.

On CS, I've hosted, surfed, cooked dinners, had coffees, drunk beers, explored cities and made a couple of friends.

Interests

Anything from neuroscience to composting toilets! I am a geek and tinkerer at heart and loves to deconstruct and understand how things work.

I am passionate about sustainability, and though I don't always feel hopeful about it, I would love to find ways in which I can participate to create a more sustainable world. I am especially interested in how we can configure lives in the city to be less destructive.

I don't eat meat (though the bengalis have lured me back to fish), but I'm pretty liberal about it and believe in everybody making their own choices (however, I will happily, if asked, argue for what I perceive as the benefits of my choices..)

• cats
• fish
• womens rights
• cooking
• recipes
• beer
• coffee
• baking
• drinking
• gardening
• politics
• socializing
• fishing
• agriculture
• neuroscience

Music, Movies, and Books

I love movies, and of course any list in a small textbox will always be entirely incomplete. If I'm anyway going to name drop I've got a strong weakness for film noir, thai new wave, animations, fifth and sixth generation chinese directors, Kim Ki-Duk, Satyajit Ray, Pedro Almodovar and so on. Among the Americans I also enjoy Woody Allen, Cohen brothers, Todd Solondz and Wes Anderson (well apart from that - bad pun - train wreck which was Darjeeling Limited). Taking me to a good movie or proposing a movie night is a sure-fire way to gain my friendship.

When I was younger I devoured Pratchett, William Gibson and Tolkien. Right now I've been catching up on Indian authors like Satyajit Ray, Amitav Ghosh, Vikram Chandra, Vikram Seth and Salman Rushdie. I've also quite enjoyably been introduced to the speedily-cooked-Japanese-food flavoured world of Murakami.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Went to country side "village" in China to start an English school over a summer when I was 20 or so, that was fun, though the amount baijiu drunk was not healthy.

Teach, Learn, Share

I happily share my failed (quite a few of them!) and successful experiments in sustainable living, vegetable gardening, cooking and baking.

I would love to learn more about making stuff from scratch. Preferably items you can eat or drink.

What I Can Share with Hosts

Recipes, film suggestions, restaurant recommendations in Kolkata, random facts (think: Harvey Krumpet, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouyVS6HOFeo).

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Bangladesh, Brazil, Cambodia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Monaco, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Vatican City State

Countries I’ve Lived In

Belgium, China, India, Sweden

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