An Exotic Place To Enjoy Art, Ideas And Cuisine

Kashi Art Café is not just an art gallery or a café; its restful ambience offers a good space for exchange of ideas by people from all over the world

 

Though the name Kashi Art Café (www.kashiartgallery.com) is almost synonymous with art and artists, and food, there is no huge signboard to guide you to the place. The tantalising aroma of coffee wafting through the air will lead you to this quaint café at the end of the Burgher Street in Fort Kochi. The artistic and architectural marvels of Fort Kochi will unravel before you the moment you step in to the café. The silence inside is interrupted only by the noise of the ice crusher. Young or old, foreign or domestic, visitors throng the café almost all time of the day, but yet it remains very peaceful. This airy tropical garden café is not just an art gallery or a café; its restful ambience offers a good space for exchange of ideas by people from all over the world. There was a time when Kashi had little or no competition at all. But now the situation has changed. Almost a dozen art cafés have sprung up around Kashi itself. Ask Edgar Pinto, the owner of Kashi, about the competition he faces and he points to the words of Herman Melville printed on the menu card: “It is better to fail in originality than succeed in imitation.” Edgar says whatever came up after Kashi, most of them are just imitations of what Kashi is offering. So, he has no such fears about competition, he says. Kashi displays paintings of various artists and also promotes exhibitions and art festivals. “Though a number of works of artists are on display in Kashi, I have a personal liking for Riyas Komu’s work,” says Edgar. Almost half of the wall just opposite the ‘Reading Man’ carry a wonderful new art work by Komu. What adorns the gallery walls of Kashi now is artist Indu Antony’s ‘Vincent Uncle’, the image of a hairy-legged, mundu-clad uncle etched in the artist’s childhood memories.