CURRENT MISSION

Visiting at least seven countries on each continent...er...yeah...that's right!

ABOUT ME

I'm a poet, lover, birdwatcher. Okay, cancel the last bit out. The sequence of words in the first line is by one of my favourite Indian poets, Nissim Ezekiel. Though honestly, I prefer AK Ramanujan. Okay, there's me going off the tangent again, which I do a lot :-).

Mumbai is a city of great extremes and I was brought up in it. My grandparents were thrust from Independence middle-class to Liberalised middle class thanks to my parents' success and I'm now part of the Globalised middle class. Why am I saying this in my profile?

Well, really, it's to say that if you're expecting any "Indian-ness" (I seldom say India, it's more a collection of states) out of me, I'm like any youth anywhere across the world.

Mumbai is the love of my life and it allows you to feel so many emotions while dulling so many of them simultaneously. In this climate of dulled senses and heightened awareness, I somehow, somewhere decided I wanted to be a writer. I've been raised as a sensitive human being and a listener (which helps) and have gravitated towards poetry. Of course, poetry doesn't pay the bills.

So from corporate to tabloidy paper (Mumbai Mirror), I've gone to respected broadsheet (Indian Express), and then switched to the much-respected Time Out magazine as Nightlife Editor.

From writing about the scene, I chose to be part of and create a scene - I set up a company with two of my oldest, closest friends - called the Bombay Elektrik Project three year ago, to promote arts and culture across the country. That company ran its course and we shut it down late last year.

Now I run Sound Curry, a music consultancy, artist bookings and urban art enterprise focussed on electronic music acts and hip hop projects.
I also work as the editor of a magazine called DJ, which does those Top 100 DJ rankings each year (the Indian edition, of course)

My real life, however, is the one lived on vacations. The rest fills in the blanks. What keeps me going is anticipating and planning the next trip.

I am the eldest of two siblings and if you read their names together you'd think former British footballer Kevin Keegan had moved to my city.

I love people, making them laugh and just being a goof. I'm an emotional, abstract, weird, quiet, disorganised person but I feel part of the enigma of my personality lies in those traits. You're welcome to figure it out.

PHILOSOPHY

If you want God to laugh, tell him your plans - Mexican aphorism.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I host, I love to point people towards the "hidden" Mumbai - basically what's not in Lonely Planet and Google. If you wanna meet, I'm almost usually game.

Since I don't have my own house as yet, my parents, who I live with, are the ones who are the "real" hosts.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Couch surfed the length (maybe not so much the breadth of US of A) - through LA, San Fran, Seattle, Chicago, Indianapolis, DC, Boston, New York - and enjoyed the company, hospitality and friendship of CSers all over. I've also couchsurfed in Hyderabad and met with two lovely CSers in Pune. I have hung out with surfers and hosted people from across the world in Mumbai, one of my favourite things to do is to meet with different people and what better way than Couch Surfing.

Interests

I love people, making friends, observing people, making friends. Writing poetry is a lifelong pursuit. I love reading the stuff too.

I'm into following deejaying as an art and lifestyle, though I don't deejay myself. At some point in life, I'd love to film a documentary on the evolution of nightlife through the eyes of its deejays in Mumbai.

I love music - my favourite genre is Drum n Bass, and lately I've fallen in love with Dubstep, though there is hardly a local scene in Mumbai. House music is a close second.

Cinema is another passion. International cinema has opened my eyes to cultures I'd never have heard of or imagined.

I collect postcards, coins and strangely, bus tickets :-) I recently donated a whole collection to a local NGO. And I've started collecting again.

I'm a football freak. FC Barcelona is the club of my life and perhaps one my happiest moments was standing on the Nou Camp pitch in Barcelona two years ago. Of course, it was a tour, and there weren't any players around.

• arts
• culture
• writing
• poetry
• singing
• documentaries
• running
• nightlife
• clubbing
• movies
• reading
• music
• electronic music
• camping
• surfing
• soccer
• beaches

Music, Movies, and Books

Too many, too many, too many.

Just saw this brilliant sports documentary called Fire in Babylon. Lined up Certified Copy and Believe - the Eddie Izzard Story.

Listening to Jahcoozi, Oy and SebAstian.

Reading A tale of two cities.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Jumping off a cliff and white water rafting on the white sand beaches of the River Ganga in Rishikesh. The drop was about 20 feet with no life jacket and the feeling of just letting go was liberating.

Celebrating Christmas in Gulmarg, Kashmir was another high point. It's the first time ever I've been in snow and there couldn't have been a better introduction. Listening to kids from near-by schools singing Saare Jahan Sey Achcha for useless politicians in -15 degrees still had a poignant air to it. Awesome, awesome, awesome.

Teach, Learn, Share

I am scratching the surface of Mumbai's local histories and pride myself on recommending off-beat things to do to friends. I believe that's something I could share with people visiting. I am also very clued into the nightlife scene in the city. So if heritage or clubbing are your scenes, I can do both, as opposite as they might sound.

I'd love to learn about new cultures and how people cope with living in circumstances of their own.

Countries I’ve Visited

Bulgaria, China, France, Germany, Italy, Mauritius, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Sri Lanka, United Arab Emirates, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

India

• 

•