Namaste everyone!

I am Gaurav (/gɔ:rʌv/) and if my name sounds unfamiliar to you, that's because it's Indian! If it sounds familiar to you that's probably because Gaurav is a very common Indian name + Indians are everywhere, aren't they? (1.2 billion omg pls staaawp!!) As many of you have already guessed, I live in India. I originally come from the lesser-known state of [Odisha](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odisha), from the city of [Cuttack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuttack). If you go by the title, you would infer that I am currently writing this post from my grandmother's garden. Pictures!!

Well, there you have it! A teaser (through my amateur photography skills :P) to my grandma's favorite hobby.

Who am I?

Now, this one's a tad bit difficult. How do I put this to words without sounding narcissistic. I am a 23 year old geek with a Bachelor's in Computer Science. I am currently pursuing my Masters in the field of Computational Linguistics from IIIT-Hyderabad. "Woah! Slow down boy...! Computational what??" Computational Linguistics. I help computers understand human language ... no not really, that's too simple. But you get the idea (Siri, Cortana, etc) By the way, [Hyderabad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyderabad) is not in Odisha. It's in the newly formed state of Telengana. If you have heard that Indian food is pretty spicy, you might have heard of Chicken Biryani. If you have heard of Chicken Biryani, oh boy! you have to try Hyderabadi Chicken Biryani. Trust me, it's something else. I stumbled into the world of blockchain and cryptocurrencies while binge-reading through reddit, last year. One thing led to another, and after investing in bitcoin/alts, a few months of FOMO/FUD and a lot of YouTube videos, I finally found Steemit! In the 4th picture you can see a guy with a stupid smile and a widow's peak on his face ... You guessed it! That's me! Here's a couple more.

B&W

Clueless

Interests

Currently my masters research is focussed around Sentiment Analysis in Odia language, which also happens to be my mother-tongue. My work revolves around building tools which help in the task of SA for Odia, which is a resource poor language. Google "SentiWordNet Odia" if you wish to know more. Other than that, I like "shooting" stuff. "Wait... WTF?" I mean, use my newbie camera(T5i/700D) to take pictures and shoot videos :P. I am intrigued by the idea of telling a story. Of capturing the audience's attention and evoking various forms of human emotion in them. I ~~plan to~~ will start a vlog soon enough. DTube seems very promising for the decentralized future. "Game?" -Minecraft. I mean, come on! You are telling me that I have a whole world to explore with endless possibilities? And they have Dragons too?! Take my money. -Age Of Empires(III). Call me old school. I love it. Didn't play DoTa yet. I have been told that if I start, my priorities in life will change. "What else?" I sketch sometimes. I am okay, I guess. Would like to do it more often. Here's some of my work.

Scarlett Johansson

Nicole Kidman

Ben Affleck

"I see you"

"Woman"

Jon Snow

Geo Antoinette

"Tattoo-man"

My other hobbies include App Development, Reading(non-fiction please!), and Dancing. With dancing comes my love for music. I mostly listen to R&B and the occasional Pop-rock. I do not have a preference of artists in the international sphere but in my own country, Arijit Singh and Mohit Chauhan are my favorites. I am open to music suggestions anytime. Give me a new song to listen to or a new book to read ANY DAY!

Why go for Steemit?

It's a "one stop" for me. Everything in one single platform. I don't have to go to 4 different social medias to post the same thing! PLUS it's NEW !! I hope to bring out and improve the creative side of me through the platform and its fresh community. Interacting with new people, having a lot of fun, and being a part of this amazing space is what I am in this for.

What would my content focus around?

I would primarily focus around blogs and making videos about incidents which have impacted my life and brought in a significant change in the way I go about doing what I do. As mentioned previously, telling a story is my thing. That's what I am here for. I wish to use the platform as a journal of sorts and to be able to seek advice from the community if & when needed. I am very new to this, so go easy on me please. I hope to eventually be able to give back to the community and contribute as much as possible.

"Cool, anything else you would like to share?"

I recently went to Europe, to attend a research conference. I visited three cities in three different countries. One city was Krakow, in Poland. I had a great time there. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. What about a thousand pictures inside one single picture? I wanted to share this for no reason at all ;)

"Arrival" - Krakow, 12th Sep '17 P.S. - It's evening now, and I should be heading back upstairs. Did I do okay with my first post?

thisrav