From an article about better alternatives to 'how are you?':

Start with a question that will build up to a conversation that meets the A.C.T. criteria:

• A - There’s authenticity
• C - There’s a connection
• T - There’s a topic that will give them taste of who you are

Some of those questions might be:

• “What’s your current state of mind?”
• “What are you looking forward to this week?”
• “You remind me of a celebrity, but I can’t remember which one — who’s someone you relate to?”"

yeah that sounds like a perfectly natural and non-awkward way to start a conversation