CURRENT MISSION

To continue on wanderlust - 'Not all those who wander are lost - JRR Tolkien'

ABOUT ME

A restless person always up to something!

PHILOSOPHY

I experience, therefore I am

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

still new and learning!

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

New to CS!

Interests

I am an avid reader, photographer and regularly engage in long distance cycling and (try to)play squash twice a week. (This is when I am not busy working with my small team of professionals at my still small technology innovation company which is engaged in building the next generation of mobile products.)

• photography
• technology
• cycling
• racquetball
• squash

Music, Movies, and Books

MUSIC: Most of my music taste comes from 2 sources - growing up listening to Hindi Movie songs- Rafi, Manna Dey, Kishore Kumar, Hemant Kumar and all the usual suspects. 2nd...since college I have been additionally addicted too Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, Doors, Queens, Billy Joel, Santana, Led Zepplin, Eric Clapton, etc etc...pretty much everything from the 70ies.

BOOKS: Reading has taken a beating of late..but if you were to look at my small library collected over the last 20 years...you will find books like 1) Guns Germs & Steel(Jarred Diamond) 2) The End of History and the Last Man(Francis Fukuyama) 3) Cannibals and Kings(Marvin Harris) 4) The Selfish Gene(Dawkins) 5) In search of Schrodinger's Cats(Gribbins) 6) The hero with the thousand face(Joseph Campbell) 7) Manufacturing Consent(Chomsky) etc.....Non-Fiction was always my first love...but I enjoy the occasional fiction too..some of the books you may be able to borrow from me would include Candide, The Catcher in the Rye, Catch 22, Sputnik Sweetheart(murakami), The Box Man(Abe), The Outsider(Camus - my personal favourite), Roald Dhal, Saki, The Heart of Darkness, Beloved(still got to finish reading it though)..and some more..Biographies 'My experiments with Truth(Gandhi), 'Beyond the deep blue mountain(JRD Tata).
I have always counted on friends to suggest my next book....
Last two books: Lucknow Boy(Vinod Mehta's biography) and "Every One Loves a Good Drought"(heartbreaking real stories/case studies of how corruption and inefficiency run in Indian government and how it impacts the lives of millions of poor in this country)

Movies: You will have to drag me to a movie :)

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Trip down Grand Canyon to touch the Colorado river(in the month of May) and be back at the top before sunset in a single day despite warnings to the contrary - the single most exhausting day in my life.
And then some simple things like years back my first sight of snow fall when I had just landed in Chicago...everything was white and at -20 degrees with chilly winds :), I thought my ears would 'break' and fall off.
Lately managed a few 100km cycle rides around Pune in some intense heat...

Teach, Learn, Share

Since 2007, I have regularly been coaching/mentoring middle managers(6 to 15 yr exp) on Project Managements(PMP) and topics like 'How to write a good proposal($10k or $10M)', through 2 to 10 full day workshops. I have conducted these work shops at some very large and well known multinational orgs as well as at small 500 people companies. So far mentored more than 3000 Project Managers.
On and off I also explain Photography to friends and family!

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Netherlands, Singapore, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Germany, India, United Kingdom, United States