My favourite pastime is Music - both listening to as well as playing. I listen to a wide variety ranging from light Hindustani and Ghazals to songs from Bollywood movies and from light Western pop to popular slow melodies. Recently, I have developed a taste and a feel for appreciating classical music works. With regard to playing music, I am a self-trained guitarist and vocalist since my undergraduate days at IIT Bombay. Since then, I have been lucky enough to find for myself a group of people sharing similar interests in music. Currently at UCSB, I am a part of Surpancham, which is a group of amateur musicians and singers. We get to perform some popular numbers during the Diwali and Springfest events organised by the India Association of Santa Barbara.

Among outdoor and sport activities, I take interest in jogging. I run regularly to keep fit. Among outdoor games, I am most fond of Cricket. Like many other Indians, I have grown up playing "gully cricket", i.e., cricket in very limited spaces. Although, I do not play it regularly, I do follow India's games. I have also developed liking towards soccer.

If I am not doing any of the above, I like to spend time with some recreational math. Since ninth grade, I have been fascinated by all the "tricks" one can play in math problems. This fascination led me towards taking the National Olympiads. These are competitions meant for students who havent entered college yet. They involve solving tough-looking problems but with elementary pre-college techniques. Among these, I have been attracted the most towards plane geometry, combinatorics and number theory. Often I end up with discussing many a "gem-of-a-problem"s with my father, who is an awesome math teacher.