I'm never too fond of these About Me sections on the internet because it forces me into self-introspection when I'm least in the mood for it - it's hard to be authentic without being a little pretentious!

Anyway, suffice to say that I'm a fun-loving, social person who likes reading and watching good cinema, calligraphy, writing, and teaching machines how to learn like humans (I'm studying to become a computer scientist, and I work with Artificial Intelligence, Linked Data and other things). :)

I value open-mindedness in a person. I love travelling and meeting different people more than most things. I like cycling. I'm a big foodie and I like to cook. I watch a wide variety of films and am a serious music lover. Recently I've been obsessed with photography .

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

To meet new people while travelling (for now, primarily around Europe!). And also, isn't it way more fun meeting local people, making new friends and having fabulous experiences than just travelling alone and lonely and sleeping in a hotel room? :)

Cheers to new experiences!

Interests

Reading, watching films, listening to music, photography, writing, programming and AI research, travelling and meeting people! I love good wine, whiskey, and beer (craft beer!!).

Oh, and I also dabble in calligraphy. Here's a beautiful example of the stuff I like: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/186899453261331714/

Check out my Instagram here: http://instagram.com/nilesh_chak

• writing
• poetry
• photography
• dancing
• dining
• cooking
• wine
• beer
• running
• movies
• reading
• traveling
• socializing
• coding
• music
• cycling
• calligraphy
• science
• software

Music, Movies, and Books

I listen to a lot of different genres, but blues rock, jazz and funk are what I live for; I like progressive rock, psychedelic rock, some indie and singer/songwriter stuff, western classical and Indian classical music. Some of my favourite artists are Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Joy Division, The Smiths, The Doors, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Lennon, Harrison, Oasis, Blur, Muse, REM, Otis Redding, James Brown, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Norah Jones, lots of avant-garde jazz artists I don't know the names of that I'm still discovering (like Miles Davis!), Damien Rice, Angus and Julia Stone, Snow Patrol, The White Stripes, The Velvet Underground, Nick Cave, John Hurt.

Regarding films, I love classics (Roman Holiday), noir (Chinatown), good dramas with nice stories (eg. One flew over the cuckoo's nest, one of the few film adaptations at par with the novel), good romance dramas (like Remembrance road), psychological thrillers (eg. Black Swan), dark comedy (Dr. Strangelove, Birdman), political/corporate thrillers/documentaries (The Insider, The Inside Job, JFK), metaphorical films (The Machinist). Some other films I like are Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather I, II, 12 Angry Men, A Clockwork Orange, Pi, Primer, Upstream Color, Umbrellas of Cherbourg (one of the few musicals I adore), Like Crazy, 12 Monkeys, Moon, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Un prophet, La guerre est declaree, A Summer's Tale, Take this Waltz, The Secret Life of Words, You can count on me. I like films by Richard Linklater, Lena Dunham.

Favourite books? Distant Echo, Picture of Dorian Gray, 1984, Dracula (Bram Stoker), David Copperfield, The Complete Sherlock Holmes, some others I can't remember!

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I'll cheat and list three:

1. Hiked through the breathtaking villages in Cinque Terre, Italy, with one of the coolest couchsurfers I've met.

2. I was standing near a cliff in India when I spotted an blanket of rain emerge from my far left, from the horizon, as it came roaring in towards me, an all-encompassing cover of water; it swept past me and I watched it go right. Before I realised what happened I was surrounded by furious rain and brilliant thunder. I can't do it justice with words but it was breathtakingly beautiful.

3. Spent months trying to figure out how to write my own hobby OS with assembly language and C and writing a toy compiler for it, when I was in class 10. After a long period of cluelessness and excitement I managed something. Having my own little piece of code being the ONLY piece of software running on a machine - that was an overpowering and humbling feeling.

Teach, Learn, Share

I can teach you Hindi, Bengali or English. At least I can try. :D I'd love to learn a bit of German or any other language you know. I would love to learn how to dance! I would love to cook for you! I can read you poems, and teach you how to ride a horse (not)!

What I Can Share with Hosts

Good home-cooked food (no promises, but I'd try my best). Jokes!

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Czech Republic, England, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Scotland

Countries I’ve Lived In

England, Germany, India