October this year turned out to be a fantastic month for sunshine and warmth where we live and it was with some sadness we abandoned Spain for a three week trip to London and India. The London portion was meant to catch up with our home in Epsom which we had not seen since 2010 and the art event Frieze which we try and get to every year. On the other hand the Indian portion of the trip was a mini reunion of the Bawa clan to celebrate many birthdays and anniversaries, Diwali and an assortment of recent birthdays.
Charting a course through the sea of Frieze
Performance
Merging with art!
London was buzzing, we were shocked to see the state of our house and put in to place a program of maintenance to get it back to the condition we used to have. The art in London was everywhere..we toured all the big events including the Other Art Fair, A show in a car park behind John Lewis on Oxford Street where we cought up with many of old srtist friends, and the Frieze itself at Regents Park. I do have an artist for a partner, but still I have to say that her reaction to the opening hours of the Frieze (11am to 7pm) 'what? only till 7?' took me by surprise. Needless to say that we went around the entire exhibition (starting at about 11.05) and only just managed to complete the mission before they threw us out at 7pm sharp!
With ants at the Saatchi Gallery
with Margot and Phoebe
With artist friends in the car park
With Anil and Hannah at Dishoom
Saluting Thames at Waterloo Bridge (for Massimiliano!)
Not before we had cought sight of a bizarre performance of someone with a bunch of vegetables and fruits for a head! That had to be our friend Fillipos from Madrid, I said to myself. Marisol said 'No it cant be surely'. I walked up to the performer and said 'Mr Tsitsopoulos I presume?' 'Arvinder!' he replied in confirming his identity. Its a small world. A few photographers took our pictures and some of these made it into magazines overnight (one in particular appeared in the Papermag online)
Fillipos
The image that appeared in Papermag
In between we cought up with most of our friends in Epsom and London and beyond, and packed in a few mouth watering meals at our usual favourite restaurants. Marisol's birthday saw us enjoy the excellent Indian cuisine at Dishoom in St Martin's Lane. There were other birthdays and reunions to celebrate too and we were already quite tired by the time we took the Air India flight 112 to Delhi.
With Anil at Frieze
With Loli and John at Frieze
With Elena at the Other Art Fair
AS stated earlier this part of our travels was for a reunion of the Bawa clan in Delhi to celebrate lots of anniversaries and to meet Mom and Dad after a year and a half.
Dad, Mom and the kids!
Sis Gunj Temple
Among the celebrations were:
Jessie (my youngest niece) and Joe's first wedding anniversary
Mom and Dad's 70th wedding anniversary earlier this year
Dad's 90th Birthday!
Guddi (Sis) and Birinder's 40th Wedding anniversary
Marisol and mine 40th Anniversary
Marisol's birthday
Sohrab's (nephew) birthday
Phew..on top of that we had Diwali during our trip as well
If we thought that we were tired after London, at the end of this Indian week we were exhausted, not least from the smog that surrounds Delhi and which never lifted during the entire week. By the end we had packed our suitcases full of packets of delicious Haldiram packets and pickles and the usual assortment of items bought after much bargaining, even if this was at an unusually high level as the prices in Delhi have risen tremendously.
Spice shop and exotic Old Delhi!
We are now safely back in Spain after a 24 hour journey, partly on a much improved Air India (product placement) ...to be continued ;-)
1 comment:
What an amazing trip! Love our photo at The Other Art Fair! Can you please send it to me?
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