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Nov. 20th, 2007 09:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhyllThe last couple of days have been wonderfully odd - I wish my life was like this all of the time.
On Friday I went out to the University of Agricultural Sciences, which is quite a distance from the office (especially when you're on the back of a bike with a heavy bag). There was a huge agricultural festival on there, Krishi Mela, which was hot and dusty and chaotic. There were some piglets and lambs to look at, though, and good coffee and conversation, which saved it for me. After that an even longer trip though Bangalore's traffic, and I arrived at Bangalore Little Theatre just in time to watch a show with Akshay. It was aimed at kids, and I really loved all the shouts from the younger members of the audience. The tiger was amusingly tigger-ish, and the troop of children playing monkeys made my heart pop.
BCB5, as I said previously, was awesome. I enjoyed the presentations on the first day a lot (does anyone want to set up a community mesh network with me? I am full of wanting), but I think the highlight was (as usual) all the people I met. There were quite a lot of people that I would have enjoyed talking to more, including a few of the Bangalore bloggers, many of the BCB5 organisers, and an Opera evangelist I met on day two... I'm disappointed to be leaving all these cool people behind so soon, and that I won't have a chance to get to know them better. Of the people that I spent a bit more time with: Kingsley was introduced to me as "a free and open software guru", and as far as I can tell is also incredibly nice. Renee is a German guy who's moved to Bangalore to try to get some support for setting up community mesh networks here. Ravi was in Friday night's play, develops software, and is great at getting Cool Stuff to happen. Kavitha is a professor from the US, staying at NIAS for a while, and is wonderful - I have decided that I want to be her when I grow up. Dinesh and The Tall Girl (Vidhi? Didi?) from my last-visit talk were there too - Dinesh exuberant and completely unfocused as usual, The Tall Girl not quite as scary now that I've admitted that I found her terrifying at first.
At the end of the first day we managed to get some people together to go for dinner, after much negotiation. I had a Kingfisher and shared a 5000 with Renee, and I think 5000 is a pretty good beer. Lots of argument! The good old "how do we define truth, and can we reach it?" argument got dusted off, but I also had fun talking about gender relations and whether blood groups influence your personality, and there was a whole other discussion at the other side of the table that I kept wanting to explore. And somehow I got onto haikus with Dinesh, and he said he'd play the haiku/renga/tanka game, and then we roped the others into it (including an old Italian guy who had appeared out of nowhere and knew Dinesh) - Dinesh is really good at roping people into things! And then, without needing much prompting, I ended up standing on a chair and rambling on about haikus a bit too, which I enjoyed more than I should have.
Day two I was exhausted, since so many coffees on day one meant I slept awfully. That was probably part of the reason why I ended up wandering around different sessions instead of just sticking with one of them - I dropped in on the sessions on the symantic web (which apparently I should have stayed for), ubuntu (the guys were really friendly and knew a heap about women working on ubuntu in Australia, and I put in my ideas for propaganda), freelancing (which was a bit too IT-focused for me), teaching and learning with the web, and blogging. Ravi also told me me sternly that I must give the talk I was thinking of, on writing, books, and the Internet, and he ran around the common area and loudly announced the session and chivvied a few innocent bystanders towards me. It was fun babbling on about Project Gutenberg, LibraryThing, Bookcrossing, NaNoWriMo, Creative Commons licenses, and all of that. Still, I think I didn't take enough time to explain each one, and I was a bit too shy and unprepared to stimulate and guide discussion well, so the topic shifted onto blogs and things fairly soon. I'm glad I did it, though.
When the sessions ended we hung around on some of the mattresses (I think all conferences should have 'rooms' that are groups of mattresses outside in the sunshine) doing the crossword (which it turns out I am no good at) and waiting for some kind of critical mass to form. I spotted a spare area to practice my cartwheels, and Dinesh saw me and demanded some capoeira - Ravi stepped up to learn, and I had a brilliant time playing around and trying to remember some moves. Somehow, with interludes for minor catastrophes, Beatles sing-a-longs on the back of motorbikes, and dance lessons on the sidewalk, we ended up at an "audio-visual protest" against the shooting of some protesters in Nandigram. Actually we were just late for the main protest, so instead the Tall Girl found some card and a pen somewhere and drew us a sign, Renee and I and assorted others 'reclaimed the street' (insofar as the traffic would allow) by dancing to the live music from the cafe behind us, and Kavita and some others started handwriting flyers for us to hand out to the rather bemused passersby, while Dinesh demanded that they "do something" for Nandigram.
Eventually a few of us made an escape and went to a dhaba near a Sikh temple for some dinner. Just a shack, but there was a huge queue (and noone at the shop next door) - I think we waited for a table for close to an hour. It was ok, though, because we all took it in turns to sing: my favourites were Kavitha's Gaelic anti-imperialist song from the 19th century and a couple of brilliant Punjabi songs by Ravi and Guy Whose Name I've Forgotten. Kingsley also gave a notable spoken-word performance, and Renee (who looks very hippy-ish) sang some Rammstein on request.
I went back to Janastu with Renee (riding on his enfield, hurrah), since the ashram shuts at 11. The Tall Girl and Dinesh told us that the protest went well after we left, and that some auto drivers had come up to find out more and to ask for information in Kannada. TG and Dinesh also told us about their trip to Burma, which was a pretty crazy story. They just walked over the border, went to stay with some monks (who sound lovely, and also petrified), got into rather a dicey situation with the local authorities, and tried to communicate helpful information across an almost total language barrier. I was really exhausted, though, and I was relieved to get back to bed. I guess because I told them how petrified I was last time I visited they were being extra nice, because TG negotiated with one of the dogs to get a bed for me, and they checked I was ok and had everything that I needed and turned off the light for me, and I fell asleep listening to people talking in the other room, feeling like a tired-but-happy little kid.
Also, I've just finished reading Che Guevara's Motorcycle Diaries, and one thing's really stuck with me. Che wandered around Latin America and had all these adventures, and it relied on him basically being terribly impolite (by my standards). He and Alberto would show up on friend-of-a-friend's doorsteps and stay until kicked out and cadged food and drinks constantly. Whereas I've had two offers to stay with friends over the last few days, and both times I immediately thought "oh no, I couldn't possibly, I'm sure that they don't really mean it". I have no intention of going to the extent in the book, but I do think I should try to accept offers like that more often.
And in this spirit I'm going to Kerala with Kavita on Friday, to check out some open source software program for schools that the government is implementing. It feels a little weird having a professor do all the running-around-travel-arrangements (but then, the only time Kavita has reinforced her superior-professor-status has been when she insisted on paying for my coffee).
In other news, today I desperately want to be like Renee and just stay here and get a job doing freelance writing. I'm being thinking through it all morning though, and I've decided that staying isn't feasible, but perhaps I could come back next year sometime? Anyway, it may just be a fleeting impulse.
On Friday I went out to the University of Agricultural Sciences, which is quite a distance from the office (especially when you're on the back of a bike with a heavy bag). There was a huge agricultural festival on there, Krishi Mela, which was hot and dusty and chaotic. There were some piglets and lambs to look at, though, and good coffee and conversation, which saved it for me. After that an even longer trip though Bangalore's traffic, and I arrived at Bangalore Little Theatre just in time to watch a show with Akshay. It was aimed at kids, and I really loved all the shouts from the younger members of the audience. The tiger was amusingly tigger-ish, and the troop of children playing monkeys made my heart pop.
BCB5, as I said previously, was awesome. I enjoyed the presentations on the first day a lot (does anyone want to set up a community mesh network with me? I am full of wanting), but I think the highlight was (as usual) all the people I met. There were quite a lot of people that I would have enjoyed talking to more, including a few of the Bangalore bloggers, many of the BCB5 organisers, and an Opera evangelist I met on day two... I'm disappointed to be leaving all these cool people behind so soon, and that I won't have a chance to get to know them better. Of the people that I spent a bit more time with: Kingsley was introduced to me as "a free and open software guru", and as far as I can tell is also incredibly nice. Renee is a German guy who's moved to Bangalore to try to get some support for setting up community mesh networks here. Ravi was in Friday night's play, develops software, and is great at getting Cool Stuff to happen. Kavitha is a professor from the US, staying at NIAS for a while, and is wonderful - I have decided that I want to be her when I grow up. Dinesh and The Tall Girl (Vidhi? Didi?) from my last-visit talk were there too - Dinesh exuberant and completely unfocused as usual, The Tall Girl not quite as scary now that I've admitted that I found her terrifying at first.
At the end of the first day we managed to get some people together to go for dinner, after much negotiation. I had a Kingfisher and shared a 5000 with Renee, and I think 5000 is a pretty good beer. Lots of argument! The good old "how do we define truth, and can we reach it?" argument got dusted off, but I also had fun talking about gender relations and whether blood groups influence your personality, and there was a whole other discussion at the other side of the table that I kept wanting to explore. And somehow I got onto haikus with Dinesh, and he said he'd play the haiku/renga/tanka game, and then we roped the others into it (including an old Italian guy who had appeared out of nowhere and knew Dinesh) - Dinesh is really good at roping people into things! And then, without needing much prompting, I ended up standing on a chair and rambling on about haikus a bit too, which I enjoyed more than I should have.
Day two I was exhausted, since so many coffees on day one meant I slept awfully. That was probably part of the reason why I ended up wandering around different sessions instead of just sticking with one of them - I dropped in on the sessions on the symantic web (which apparently I should have stayed for), ubuntu (the guys were really friendly and knew a heap about women working on ubuntu in Australia, and I put in my ideas for propaganda), freelancing (which was a bit too IT-focused for me), teaching and learning with the web, and blogging. Ravi also told me me sternly that I must give the talk I was thinking of, on writing, books, and the Internet, and he ran around the common area and loudly announced the session and chivvied a few innocent bystanders towards me. It was fun babbling on about Project Gutenberg, LibraryThing, Bookcrossing, NaNoWriMo, Creative Commons licenses, and all of that. Still, I think I didn't take enough time to explain each one, and I was a bit too shy and unprepared to stimulate and guide discussion well, so the topic shifted onto blogs and things fairly soon. I'm glad I did it, though.
When the sessions ended we hung around on some of the mattresses (I think all conferences should have 'rooms' that are groups of mattresses outside in the sunshine) doing the crossword (which it turns out I am no good at) and waiting for some kind of critical mass to form. I spotted a spare area to practice my cartwheels, and Dinesh saw me and demanded some capoeira - Ravi stepped up to learn, and I had a brilliant time playing around and trying to remember some moves. Somehow, with interludes for minor catastrophes, Beatles sing-a-longs on the back of motorbikes, and dance lessons on the sidewalk, we ended up at an "audio-visual protest" against the shooting of some protesters in Nandigram. Actually we were just late for the main protest, so instead the Tall Girl found some card and a pen somewhere and drew us a sign, Renee and I and assorted others 'reclaimed the street' (insofar as the traffic would allow) by dancing to the live music from the cafe behind us, and Kavita and some others started handwriting flyers for us to hand out to the rather bemused passersby, while Dinesh demanded that they "do something" for Nandigram.
Eventually a few of us made an escape and went to a dhaba near a Sikh temple for some dinner. Just a shack, but there was a huge queue (and noone at the shop next door) - I think we waited for a table for close to an hour. It was ok, though, because we all took it in turns to sing: my favourites were Kavitha's Gaelic anti-imperialist song from the 19th century and a couple of brilliant Punjabi songs by Ravi and Guy Whose Name I've Forgotten. Kingsley also gave a notable spoken-word performance, and Renee (who looks very hippy-ish) sang some Rammstein on request.
I went back to Janastu with Renee (riding on his enfield, hurrah), since the ashram shuts at 11. The Tall Girl and Dinesh told us that the protest went well after we left, and that some auto drivers had come up to find out more and to ask for information in Kannada. TG and Dinesh also told us about their trip to Burma, which was a pretty crazy story. They just walked over the border, went to stay with some monks (who sound lovely, and also petrified), got into rather a dicey situation with the local authorities, and tried to communicate helpful information across an almost total language barrier. I was really exhausted, though, and I was relieved to get back to bed. I guess because I told them how petrified I was last time I visited they were being extra nice, because TG negotiated with one of the dogs to get a bed for me, and they checked I was ok and had everything that I needed and turned off the light for me, and I fell asleep listening to people talking in the other room, feeling like a tired-but-happy little kid.
Also, I've just finished reading Che Guevara's Motorcycle Diaries, and one thing's really stuck with me. Che wandered around Latin America and had all these adventures, and it relied on him basically being terribly impolite (by my standards). He and Alberto would show up on friend-of-a-friend's doorsteps and stay until kicked out and cadged food and drinks constantly. Whereas I've had two offers to stay with friends over the last few days, and both times I immediately thought "oh no, I couldn't possibly, I'm sure that they don't really mean it". I have no intention of going to the extent in the book, but I do think I should try to accept offers like that more often.
And in this spirit I'm going to Kerala with Kavita on Friday, to check out some open source software program for schools that the government is implementing. It feels a little weird having a professor do all the running-around-travel-arrangements (but then, the only time Kavita has reinforced her superior-professor-status has been when she insisted on paying for my coffee).
In other news, today I desperately want to be like Renee and just stay here and get a job doing freelance writing. I'm being thinking through it all morning though, and I've decided that staying isn't feasible, but perhaps I could come back next year sometime? Anyway, it may just be a fleeting impulse.