The Curious Case of... Mihir Patkar
(All of us are born curious. Some of us actively practice it, irrespective of age. Our Curious Cases series give you a glimpse into the minds of such curious folk. May they rub off you the right way!)
When Mihir is not winning beer vouchers at our pub quizzes (and putting those vouchers to good use), he writes - about technology. He has written for sites like @lifehacker and national newspapers.
Name
Mihir Patkar
Location
Mumbai
What I do
Freelance Writer, Journalist
On the Curiosity scale, I am...
Plain Curious
What I prefer to consume (in descending order of preference):
TV Shows Movies Newspapers Social Media Audio Books
Number of books and movies I get through in a year
Far too many to count.
One book I’d recommend to a friend / colleague:
Book: Stephen King's Misery Comic: Kurt Busiek's Superman: Secret Identity
My best source for book / movie / website recommendations:
I don't really have a single source. I consume a lot of information on the internet all the time, I have like-minded friends, so the recommendations come from several sources.
One movie / show I’ve loved that hardly anyone else has watched
Utopia (UK)
I am currently reading:
From Byculla to Bangkok, by Hussain Zaidi. The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman.
One place on Earth that I am very curious about:
Vatican Library
Website(s) that I get a lot of useful info from:
One topic I am super-opinionated about:
Nothing really comes to mind. Sports, I guess?
People come to me to find out what I think about these topics:
Technology/gadgets Food Movies/TV shows Cricket
What I prefer to use (in descending order of preference)
Twitter Facebook None
The strangest food item I have eaten
Frog legs
If I could spend a day in the mind, body, and shoes of a person, it would be...
Narendra Modi. Not because I admire him, it's quite the opposite. But I'm unable to fathom how he functions.
One interesting / fun fact I recently learnt:
Neil Degrasse Tyson estimates Thor's hammer would weigh around 300 billion elephants
I stay up-to-date by doing this...
Twitter, and browsing those aforementioned websites
One interesting/fun fact about myself
I can eat more than you.
I express my curiosity by doing these things:
Asking questions if I'm talking to someone. Or just researching the subject on the internet.
The one thing I am very interested in
Story-telling
A habit or skill I’d love to acquire:
Regular financial accounting.
A movie or TV show that taught me something new
The West Wing: optimism for political process, among a lot of other useful information.
If there was one mystery I’d like to solve, it would be
Benjamin Kyle's real identity. He found out and he still won't tell the world!
I would love to do this at least once
Go to a restaurant and say, "Sab ka ek." And then finish it.
People I would like to ask all these same questions to:
Vijay Nair of OML
Curiosity is important to my work because...
My job is to basically synthesize a lot of information into simple, coherent language. Curiosity leads me to find the right information before I can do that.
Someone I know who asks a lot of questions
Several journalists. But asking the right Q is more important. In that sense, I've always liked Anthony Bourdain for the types of questions he asks in his shows.
My curiosity tip
Listen and understand, before you ask the next question.