Travel

A very wise woman once said, "Your website shouldn't just be another Linkedin profile". Hence, to include the mandatory personal component I thought I could treat this page as a travel diary. I love travelling and I've been very fortunate to have visited some wonderful places. Below is a list of my travel/living experiences in various cities/countries.

Oxford, Cambridge & London (UK): 2020: For my masters I've had the fortune to spend some time in the UK. While staying at Oxford, I've made several trips to "the other place" (Cambridge) and London. While London is probably my favourite big city in the world now, I must say, living in Oxford or Cambridge is really something else. I have forgotten how normal buildings look after living in Oxford. Also, the weird traditions at Oxford were initially a huge pain, but I've slowly come to appreciate all the pomp and rigidity. For example, we have a strict dress code for exams: A full suit (must be dark) and an academic gown, you won't be allowed in the exam hall if you're not in that attire!

Rehovot, Weizmann Institue of Science (Israel): Jan, 2019 - I visited the Weizmann Institute of Science for a conference on electron hydrodynamics. I had heard a lot about the calibre of the institute but I had no idea it was such a pretty campus! We also visited a crater in a desert nearby. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to go to Tel Aviv, hopefully next time!

Boston/Cambridge, USA: Jan-Jul, 2018: For my study abroad program, I spent a semester and summer at Harvard in 2018, it turned out be one of the most transformative experiences in my life. Working in the Harvard physics department, cemented by belief in pursuing condensed matter theory research as a career. The energy in the city, with Harvard and MIT right next to each other, was unparalleled. No wonder some of the greatest contributions to mankind have come from such a small city.

New York City, USA: May-Jun 2018: I had a lot of expectations from the Big Apple and it certainly didn't disappoint. I made two trips to NYC, one for just 24 hours and the other one spread out over a week, while I was at Harvard. NYC is not for everyone, its fast, bold, incredibly diverse and its just in your face the whole time. Life in New York changes drastically when you move north from midtown Manhattan, not nearly as luxurious and glitzy, infact quite dismal, something you wouldn't expect from the "capital of the world". But hey, "once you've made it here, you can make it anywhere!"

California, USA: Jun-Jul 2017, Mar 2018: If I had to live somewhere in the US for a long time, it would definitely be somewhere in California. Amazing weather (so much better than the East coast), extremely friendly people and excellent academic institutes! I visited Caltech in Pasadena (1 hour from LA) for a month in 2017 for an astronomy project. Following that, I went to San Francisco for a week where I visited the campuses of UCBerkley and Stanford. I 2018, while on study abroad, I made another trip to California, this time I was in Claremont, small town with some great liberal arts colleges. In both years I made several trips to LA and was just shocked by how big and yet poorly connected the city is. The public transport is almost non-existent, everyone drives their own car! LA is a very interesting city, very hipster, with Venice beach, Hollywood boulevard etc, you will find some really weird things (eg: The Museum of Broken Relationships). It also has the filthy rich and crazy luxurious district of Beverly Hills which blew my mind. I also made a trip to a small Danish town close to Santa Barbara, called Solvang. It was absolutely gorgeous, a true small town with very little people, only one street as their city centre, and most shops closing at 6. Quite a break from LA!

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: Oct 2017: I travelled to HCMC for a weekend (alas, a very short time :( ) with the Yale-NUS Men's football team to play a friendly match against one of the best university teams in Vietnam. We had a packed schedule, reach on Friday, play matches on Sat and Sun, then leave on Sunday night. We won against their B team but got hammered by their first team. Besides their team, Vietnamese food also won, it was so delicious and so cheap, this country is a hidden gem! Also, did I mention, I have never seen as many scooters on the road in my whole life!

Chiang Mai, Thailand: Mar 2017: In my sophomore year, as part of an observational astronomy class, Prof. Bryan Penprase took us to Chiang Mai, where we went to the highest point in Thailand and operated a telescope used by the National Astronomical Research Institute. I took several images of different variable stars and the data from these images went into my final project for the class. Besides the work, we also got to explore the city a little bit, taste some delicious Thai food and I for the first time in my life, saw an uninterrupted view of the night sky! Everyone should atleast once in their lifetime, see the night sky in its full glory!

Geneva, Switzerland: Feb 2017: In our sophomore year Prof. Richard Breedon, from UC Davis was visiting Yale-NUS. He was the head of the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN and we were very lucky that he taught a short course on particle colliders with a bonus field trip to CERN for a whole week! Visiting CERN was a teenage dream and all thanks to Yale-NUS, we got to stay in CERN at their guest hotel and get guided trips by their best scientists , for a whole week in Geneva for just a 100 SGD! Geneva was absolutely beautiful, but the sheer scale of the Large Hadron Collider was unbelievable. More than 10,000 people work a the facility, and there's so much more to it than just physics. The engineering that goes into it is simply amazing and quite sadly often overlooked.

Bintan and Batam Islands, Indonesia: Dec 2016 and Dec 2017: and Only a ferry ride away from Singapore, these two islands were hotspots for a weekend getaway. Great beaches, nothing much to do other than just roam around the beach, walk around the small town and just relax.

Taipei, Taiwan: Oct 2016: My first sports trip from Yale-NUS. I lead the Yale-NUS men's football team to play friendlies against two teams in Taipei. We had a very packed schedule, flew in Saturday early morning, played a game 4 hours after landing, then one again next day and then we left on Sunday night. We didn't get to roam around the city much but we had great food and a lot of fun playing football. We drew both our matches unfortunately :/

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Jan 2016: When I first came to Singapore, my mom couldn't come because she was occupied with her school duties. So after our winter vacation, we decided to make a trip to KL and then take my mom to SG. Having stayed in SG for about 4 months, KL seemed very familiar, the same big city vibe, but it wasn't as impressive as SG. Nevertheless, we had a good time touring the twin towers and the temples.

Sandakphu, West Bengal, India: Dec 2015: This was the trip of a lifetime. I went with my closest friends from school on a 5 day trek to Sandakphu, the highest point in West Bengal. I had never gone on a trek before, however, I don't think I've ever enjoyed myself as much in a trip. We hiked around 62 km upto an altitude of something like 12500-13000 feet. At the highest point, we got the most amazing views of the Kanchenjunga range and Mount Everest. As the sun rose above the clouds, the sunlit mountain range gave us all an experience to remember forever.

Tropical Forests in Brunei: 2015: For our week 7 field trip, we went to the wilderness in the tropical forests of Brunei, completely cutoff from all civilisation, where we spent a whole week, living in a lodge within the forest. As expected, it was quite a foreign experience but living for a whole week with a group of people without any phone network or internet connection really wasn't that bad. We had a lot of fun, rafted down the river, climbed up 5000 steps to the highest point in the forest, climbed up waterfalls to catch flies and a lot more. Unfortunately, I don't have many photos of the jungle :(

Siem Reap, Cambodia: Aug 2015: Elm College, my residential college in Yale-NUS, took all its freshers to a 5 day trip to Cambodia during our orientation week. There were temples galore in Siem Reap and we also spent a whole day at the famous Angkor Wat! The fusion of various histories and cultures in one monument was very interesting to see and hear about. Siem Reap was a very contrasting city, there were lavish 5 star hotels right next to extremely poor houses. While it was evident that their entire economy ran on tourism, it was unclear as to what could be the solution so such grave inequity.

Singapore: Jul 2015 - May 2019 : Before going to Singapore, I had heard that it was a place with extremely strict laws, very little "freedom" etc. However, spending 4 years of life completely changed my view of the city and most importantly my experience at Yale-NUS completely changed me. Singapore, for me, is the ideal city to live and more importantly work in. Sure, its probably not the ideal retirement place, or if you're into activism, or if you want cold weather, but if you want to work and work efficiently as well as have an extremely high quality of life, there is not better city in the world. The city is slowly but surely becoming the model for THE global city, most certainly in Asia and also in the world. Despite having practically zero natural resources as well zero natural tourist attractions, the city state, in just 50+ years has managed to transform itself into a tourism and finance hub. Singapore's population, although majorly ethnically Chinese, is getting incredibly diverse. The city has four official languages, reflecting the ethnicities of four major parts of its domestic population: Mandarin, Malay, Tamil and English. Everyone in the country speaks very good English, they also have their own colloquial language, Singlish. Singapore has a reputation for being one of the most expensive places to live in, but as a student, especially for food, there a multiple cheap options all over the city called Hawker centres, which serve great quality and hygienic food at a great price. Overall, I would wish nothing more than to settle in this country at some point in my life.

Andaman and Nicobar Islands: Dec 2014: My parents and I visited Andaman and Nicobar islands in the winter break. The collection of islands are without a doubt, one of the prettiest places in the country. The white sand beaches and crystal blue at waters Neil and Havelock Island are amongst the best natural beaches I've been to in the world. We also visited the jail where more than 500 freedom fighters were imprisoned during the freedom struggle. Almost 400 of these prisoners were from Bengal. Visiting prisons is always a very unsettling experience, the combination of the gruelling history of the place and oblivious people happily snapping selfies at every chance creates a paradoxical experience. Nevertheless, the light and sound show was a spectacle. We also visited the habitats of the Jarua tribe, a native to the islands who have been known to be cutoff from the rest of the "civilized" world. The A&N islands are a gold mine of untapped tourism revenue, the government must do better in promoting such a beautiful location to the rest of the world.

Bangkok and Pattaya, Thailand: May 2014: My first foreign trip with my family was to Bangkok and Pattaya, two places every Indian family visits at least once in their lifetime. We first went to Pattaya, a small city a few hours from Bangkok, known especially among Indian males for all the wrong reasons, but also surprisingly a place where every family visits on their trip to Thailand. Mostly known for its beaches, Pattaya is a great place to lay back and relax, do water-sports etc. We then went to Bangkok, which was the typical big Asian city, very crowded, crazy traffic etc. Thailand is majorly Buddhist and there are pretty temples/monasteries laid all over Bangkok. Thai food is one of my favourite Asian cuisines and has quite a few resemblances to Indian cuisine.

Dublin, Ireland: May 2012: My first overseas trip, to Dublin, was the trip that completely changed my view on travel and life. Prior to this, I had not travelled much, even within my country. I was very fortunate to be selected as 1 of the 15 students to represent my school in their prestigious Kolkata-Dublin exchange programme. Its a two-step programme. First 15 boys from Belvedere College Dublin ( a high school) would come to Kolkata, live in our houses with our families for 15 days ( 1 boy/family, Eoin Flanaghan stayed at mine), do some form of social service in the city, experience the city and the culture. Second, we would go to Dublin and do the same thing. To fund ourselves we had to approach various companies to sponsor Rs. 60,000 for our trip. This was quite a humbling and transformative experience. We went from door to door to various offices, getting rejected at most, but somehow a bunch of 9th grade kids managed to independently approach companies and raise the required amount. Anyway, cutting to the trip, we were fortunate to get 2 weeks of absolutely wonderful weather. Dublin is a very picturesque city, a lot of parks, very little population density and very vibrant culture. I stayed with a wonderful family (The Turleys) on the outskirts of Dublin, in a place called Ratoath. I worked at an old home for Dementia patients where I used to help them with their daily activities like eating, taking a walk etc. Each of us had to do some form of social service and then each of us had to travel to the city centre on our own to attend a reflections session at Belvedere. We had to maintain a journal in which we wrote down our reflections about the city and the work every day. Living in a local family, travelling in public transport and interacting regularly with the locals is the best way to experience a culture, and we were very fortunate to have got this opportunity at such a young age. The group travelling to Dublin from Kolkata made the trip even more special. The teachers were very friendly and supportive, and most of the students were very close friends of mine much before the program.