No Content, No Fuss: Category india

Karnatik Jazz, Live Painting, and such things...

anil@recoil.org (Anil Madhavapeddy) — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 21:28:00 +0100

Had a great evening out in San Francisco on Friday, when we visited the Red Poppy Art House on Folsom Street to check out a really unique Jazz experience.

The boys from VidyA recently took up an artist-in-residence position there, and performed their fusion of traditional Indian Karnatik music with modern Jazz pieces. They've been making some waves in the SF Jazz scene already it seems, and to top it all of, the owner of the art house did a live painting session during the performance. The audience passed out random bits of stuff, and he incorporated it into a piece done over the course of an evening. Talk about artistic overload!

Love the area as well; there's a nice friendly coffee-house down the road (which is pretty much my only criteria, apart from not getting shot and such).

My school was never this cool.

The area was a mix of Latino and African, it seemed

And in the Red Poppy Art House, eclectic art abounds

Wanderings through Northern India

avsm — Mon, 26 Dec 2005 14:38:00 +0000

When I visit India, I normally stick to the south where most of my extended family lives. In a miniature rebellion this Christmas, I took up my good friends' Seb and Sheree on their offer to show me around their towns of New Delhi and Kolkata. The trip has ended up being a huge amount of fun, as we combined tourism with a suitable dose of partying in such places as the Tolly Country Club for Xmas Eve (which has a waiting list of decades for membership!!!). I'm currently in Kolkata with my parents, and sadly heading back to Cambridge in a few days. I think this will be the first time I actually miss leaving India, as the North seems to be the distinct winner over South India in terms of being more modern and fun...

Seb and Sheree pose in Delhi

Mad Xmas Eve party in Calcutta

Mummy and a Xmas tree!

Travelling the land of contradictions

avsm — Tue, 09 Aug 2005 19:36:07 +0100

My Dad and I have been in India for over a week now, travelling across quite a few cities visiting relatives and catching up with friends. Our trip started in Bangalore, unfortunately for the funeral service a close family friend. Despite the reasons for going, Bangalore turned out to be the first city in India I would describe as "pleasant", with glorious sunshine and a temperature that was always just right!

I was pretty impressed with the pace of development there as well, with software development being outsourced there at a huge rate. However, despite the shining new Silicon Valley-style buildings, the infrastructure still needs a lot of work as traffic is insane and getting around the place is pretty tough (starting with the lame airport!). It's been 23 years since I was last here, and it's definitely been worth the visit. Dad and I are currently in Hyderabad, so here are a few pictures I snapped over the last few days.

The memorial ceremony

Traffic really is crazy

It looks like de_dust!

Back to the cold!

avsm — Tue, 07 Jan 2003 11:59:00 +0000

Anand and I came back from India a few days ago, spent New Year's Eve in Belfast, and I've jetted back to frosty Cambridge now!
The trip to India was fun, if improbably busy (involving a lot of train and car travel to see a lot of relatives). Pictures will arrive as soon as I've unpacked my digicam and found my CompactFlash interface - I even took some videos with my IXUS from various dodgy taxis and autorickshaws.
But for now, Dave, Rich and I have to finish our paper for HotOS 2003. Back to the grind...

Jetting off East

avsm — Mon, 16 Dec 2002 17:23:00 +0000

Anand and I are off to India tommorrow for 2 weeks! The flight is via Dubai, so hopefully there'll be a good opportunity to go shopping in the el-cheapo Middle-east. Gonna take my digital camera to India, so lots of pictures will go up when I'm back.
Also, Nick has been testing out Movable Type as a replacement engine for Scribe (instead of LiveJournal). LiveJournal is great, but really geared up for big installations, which we definitely aren't.

Currently bench-pressing: 75kg