History · Reading · Stamps & Coins · Archaeological Sites · Gadgets · Design
History is the ultimate long read — civilisations rising and falling, empires shaping languages and borders, individuals changing the course of events. The Indian subcontinent alone offers millennia of extraordinary layered history to explore.
Special interests include ancient Indian history, Mughal and Maratha eras, colonial period, medieval Gujarat, and the history of science and astronomy across cultures. History and astronomy overlap more than most people realise — the great observatories of Jantar Mantar, Arabic star-name traditions, and India's contribution to mathematics and celestial observation.
History, astronomy, popular science, philosophy, and the occasional well-crafted novel — reading runs across almost every other interest. A book about ancient astronomy leads to a book about the civilisation that built the observatories, which leads to a book about the trade routes that spread that knowledge.
Always reading multiple books simultaneously — one serious, one light, one on the bedside table for late nights.
Every stamp is a miniature artwork commissioned by a government — a tiny window into the priorities, aesthetics, and history of its time. Every coin is a physical artefact that has passed through hundreds of hands across centuries.
Philately focuses on thematic collections — astronomy & space, Indian heritage, nature & wildlife, and historic events. Numismatics covers ancient Indian coins through to colonial-era issues — each one a fragment of economic history.
Replace placeholders with photos of your actual stamps & coins
Visiting archaeological sites is history made physical — you stand where people stood thousands of years ago, walk the same streets, and see the same stonework they shaped. Gujarat is extraordinarily rich in this regard, from Indus Valley sites to Solanki-era temples and Mughal fortifications.
The practice combines naturally with photography and history research — each site visit becomes a documentation exercise, reading the layers of time in carved stone and excavated earth.
A lifelong technology enthusiast — not just as a user, but as someone who wants to understand how things work and what they can really do. New gadgets are tested properly, not just unboxed and forgotten.
Astronomy and birdwatching both benefit enormously from technology — from motorised telescope mounts and goto systems to digiscoping adapters and astrophotography cameras. Gadget interest is always practical as much as it is enthusiastic.
As a UI/UX designer by profession at Altair Interactive, design thinking is a constant lens. But creative design as a hobby operates in a different register — more experimental, more personal, less constrained by user research and business requirements.
This includes making outreach materials for astronomical events, designing visual identities for community programmes, typographic explorations, and occasionally just making something beautiful for its own sake.
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