Art Room by Indu Singh

Art Room by Indu Singh
J-212, Block J, Gamma II, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201310, India

Art Room by Indu Singh is an intimate, daylight-filled performance space carved out of a crumbling haveli in the heart of Jaipur’s old Pink City. Hidden behind a cobalt-blue door on a spice-scented lane, the 120-seat room began life twenty-three years ago as the private studio of the Hindustani vocalist Indu Singh. After her death in 2014 the family resisted commercial redevelopment, instead converting the sun-dappled space into a living memorial that still feels like someone’s guest house rather than a public venue.

The architecture frames music before a single note is played. Forty-foot-high ceilings are capped by a retractable skylight made of pink-tinted Belgian glass, bathing every performance in the glow of Jaipur’s legendary sunset. Brick arches, left deliberately unrestored, create the acoustic diffusion singers dream of; clay pots of varying sizes are built into niches along the walls like passive subwoofers, extending the natural reverb by half a second without electronics. A marigold-and-sandstone floor slopes gently toward the audience like an old kotha, so even a whispered alaap arrives fully formed at the last row.

Programming is rigorously curated by family members who insist on balancing experimentation with roots. Early evenings, 6-7:30 p.m., belong to emerging folk and Sufi voices under the “Voice Before Echo” series. After a thirty-minute break for chai and saffron jalebis, the main 8 p.m. set spotlights seasoned maestros—think Shujaat Khan playing solo sitar three feet from listeners, or Anoushka Shankar testing new electro-raga patches plugged straight into the room’s beet-red Yamaha grand (the only amplification allowed). Once a month, an all-night “Char Dewar” session borrows from Sufi dargah culture: four walls, four musicians, four hours of uninterrupted improvisation until 4 a.m.; mattresses replace chairs, and attendees are invited to lie down and dream inside the music.

Sound etiquette is sacrosanct. Phones are deposited in vintage Nandi lockers; photography is forbidden except for one designated “house photographer” whose archival silver-gelatin prints are later mailed to the artists with handwritten thank-you notes. Tickets range from 250 rupees for students to 1,800 for the sunset ledges—three stone steps where spectators sit barefoot, sipping khullad chai. Despite minimal publicity, the Art Room sells out weekly, sustained by word of mouth and a discreet WhatsApp broadcast that opens booking exactly ten days before each show. At show’s end, every guest walks a lantern-lit path past Indu Singh’s original tanpura collection and deposits a marigold petal into her bronze surmandal. The petal ritual, her grandson insists, “keeps the room tuned even when no one is playing.”

Check on Google Maps