CURRENT MISSION

To be wide, open, and spaced out...always

ABOUT ME

visited 24 states (48%)Create your own visited map of The United States

Howdydoodle, y'all? I am a cosmic cowboy from the Wild East who was meant to ride the Western range. After doing that for 10. 5 years, in a momentary lapse of reason, this Spring, I took up a position as Asso. Professor of Ethnomusicology at FLAME, Pune (India's first liberal education college). http://www.flame.edu.in/index.php/faculty/fulltime/450-kalra-ajay.html

The preceding ten years took me across 22 states in US, while officially I was hooked up to the Bluegrass and Country Music Program/MA Liberal Studies at East Tennessee State and later to Ph.D. Ethnomusicology at the University of Texas at Austin. Always traversing wide, open spaces is the only way to be for me. In fact even my dissertation was on the sonic construction of such spaces in late- and post-countercultural pastoral music (country rock, pastoral jazz, afro rock etc.):
http://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/6543

Looking now to travel the rest of the Western range (Canada, Europe, Australia/NZ and the US Rockies/West Coast).

You can find a li'l more about me from my Berea College Appalachian Music Fellowship profile page: http://www.berea.edu/hutchinslibrary/specialcollections/amfp/amfpkalra2006.asp

and

this University of Texas at Austin faculty magazine article from when I taught a survey course titled Blues Routes (which replaced Clifford Antone's fabled class on the blues): http://www.utexas.edu/know/2007/11/29/kalra-feature/

PHILOSOPHY

A restless body can harbor a peaceful mind.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Just joined. But my place in the hills of West Pune is available for fellow gypsy hearts and feet. Y'all come, y'hear?

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Through myspace, I met a delightful host (Amy Neuser) whom I visited in magical Boulder, Colorado around Halloween 2008. (See some of the pics)

Interests

Suspension in wide, open spaces with apposite pastoral music (for me Pure Prairie League, the Eagles, Jackson Browne, Tom Rush, Gordon Lightfoot, Kate Wolf, Nanci Griffith, Gram Parsons, Tony Rice, David Grisman, Mason Proffit, Pharoah Sanders, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Knopfler/Atkins, John Prine, Townes Van Zandt, Paul Siebel, Willis Alan Ramsey, Loggins and Messina, Buffalo Springfield, Manassas, CSNY)

• education
• yoga
• traveling
• bouldering
• music
• country music
• jazz
• blues
• teaching
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies: Into the Wild, A River Runs Through It, Easy Rider
Music: Country rock, jazz rock, pastoral jazz, country folk, singer-songwriter, folkabilly, Bakersfield country, Progressive bluegrass, progressive country/cosmic cowboy music

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Driven from Californa-aye to Texas. Rocky Mountain National Park; New England fall foliage.

Teach, Learn, Share

To teach how to play bluegrass music with Punjabi lyrics? maybe while doing yoga?

Countries I’ve Visited

United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

India, United States

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