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In my free time, I like to travel, sketch and read. I enjoy collecting stamps (which I do even if I don't have free time :) ), and (my trademark) tampering with gadgets to figure out how they work - nearly half of my knowledge about computers comes from this.
Travelling
I actually belong to Chennai (Tamil Nadu) but the army life-style made us go around many parts of the country. The following is a non-exhaustive list of places where I have lived:
  • Secunderabad (my birth place - it's a twin city to Hyderabad)
  • Madras (now Chennai - my home town)
  • Puna (now Pune)
  • Yol Camp (a small military station in the Himalayas, just next to McLeodganj)
  • Hisar, Haryana (A piece of trivia - it was once a very strong candidate for the Capital of Haryana!)
  • Babina, U.P.(many people think it's in M.P. but its not!)
  • Suratgarh, Rajasthan (a small town in the heart of the Thar Desert)
  • Patiala, Punjab (and quite typical of it :) )
  • Delhi, the Capital city, where I have been living for the last 6 years.
In addition to these places, I have travelled to many other places from these cities for sight-seeing/excursion. These include Mussoorie, Nainital, Bikaner, Tirupathi, Dalhousie, Jhansi, Kochi, and many more... The latest in this series was a grand 5 day long trip to Rajasthan which encompassed three cities - Jaisalmer, Jodhpur and Udaipur. The exploits of this trip can be seen in the gallery.
Outside of India, the only place I've been to is California, USA. I visited Santa Clara, Fremont and San Francisco.
Reading
I am a voracious reader! If I get onto a book (and get beyond the first 2 chapters) then I won't give it up before I finish it, irrespective of homeworks, exams, whatever. I've mostly read fiction, although I have started reading some good scientific works (not text books!) in last few years like The Big Bang (Dr Simon Singh) and Opticks (Sir Isaac Newton). I have read the works of Enid Blyton (as a kid), Agatha Christie (almost all novels), J R R Tolkien, Robert Ludlum, Jeffery Archer, J K Rowling and contemporary writers like Kazuo Ishiguro, Jhumpa Lahiri, Amitav Ghosh, Dan Brown. I have just finished reading The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. I am looking forward to read The Lost Symbol. Personally I would recommend to every human being to read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Even The Lord of the Rings is a must read for anyone who enjoys fantasy as a genre (even the movies are great but the book is definitely more rewarding).