I am a researcher and writer with interests in music, religion and social histories. I've recently moved to New York to start out on a Ph.D. in Religion and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. Before this, I've spent many years wandering in search of sounds, images, and ideas, often meeting people who were also looking for such spaces to escape too. Sometimes those encounters led to beautiful experiments of living imaginatively that inevitably revolved around sharing food and music; and travelling together and apart. As my life begins to resemble the grid layout of my surroundings, I hope travel and CouchSurfing can be that imaginative escape.

Update
** Back living in Bangalore till Sep '24

I host travellers for a maximum of three nights. I don't host workcations and people who are travelling on work (or to find work).

Interests

• drinking
• live music
• backpacking
• languages
• films
• theatre
• queer
• silence
• local history
• social movements
• aesthetics
• tasting new food
• architecure
• lgbtq
• experiencing new cultures
• intimacy
• cooking together

Music, Movies, and Books

Books: where to begin?

Favorite fiction and poetry: Toni Morrison, Vikram Seth, Orhan Pamuk, Bruce Chatwin, Rohinton Mistry, Devanur Mahadeva, Hoshang Merchant, Audre Lorde, Amitav Ghosh, Namdeo Dhasal, James Baldwin, Allen Ginsberg, Mahashweta Devi, Rahul Sankritayana, Saadi Shirazi, Bertolt Brecht, Walt Whitman

Philosophy and Theory: Walter Benjamin, George Bataille, Hannah Arendt, B.R. Ambedkar, Jaques Ranciere, Ashish Nandy, Gopal Guru, Aniket Jaware, A.K. Ramanujan, Marcel Mauss

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

▪️Spent time in Chiapas, Mexico with the Zapatista Liberation Army
▪️Was a trench supervisor at an Indus Valley/Harappan archeological dig in Kutch
▪️Lived in five squats for over a year in East London (some without heating in the winter)
▪️Crossed the Wagah Border and visited Pakistan (a difficult feat for someone with Indian citizenship)

Teach, Learn, Share

Teach:

Cooking, South Indian food (I make a decadent Coorg style Pandi (pork) curry and a ridiculously spicy Shaoji chicken) Sindhi food (Sai Bhaji, Koki, Sindhi kadhi and mutton)

Painting, but your probably best off not learning from me because it's mostly doodling and other kinds of automatic drawing 😵‍💫

Learn: Rope skills, regional recipes, magic tricks. Someone please teach me Spanish. I have some basics 😋

Countries I’ve Visited

China, England, Hong Kong, Macao, Mexico, Nepal, Pakistan, Singapore, United States, Wales

Countries I’ve Lived In

England, India, United States