From door to door

The Family has been very excited about street art ever since Berlin. When she saw the remarkable example of street art in Kochi it was a foregone conclusion that we would stalk the streets looking for more. A beautiful example which combined all the tropes about Kerala is the one you can see in the featured photo. I liked the way the door has been just let be, like a panel separator in a graphic novel.

Walking about the streets of the Spice bazaar, I could not help noticing the other thing I love to take photos of: doors. The beautifully weathered example that you see above, showed me the reason for the choice of colours in the big mural of the elephant. This shade of blue is a characteristic colour for doors in this part of Fort Kochi.

Some of the heritage bungalows on the island have been turned into hotels. Near the Bishop’s House we found a bungalow standing in the middle of a lawn so manicured that it could have belonged to the army. But the gates stood open, so we wandered in and found that it was a hotel. The door was lovely, and the tinted glass above it was the blue of Kochi.

Other colours are not neglected though. This giant black door with white trim was impressive. The red post box hanging next to it made a nice picture. I wished the smaller inset door had been open; that might have given me an interesting view into the courtyard beyond. I suppose that the courtyard is surrounded by warehouses.

Not all doors were large and imposing. This little house on the side of the road was unusual, in the sense that it took up harbour-side space which could have been used for a warehouse. Perhaps there was a warehouse here earlier, and it has now given way to the cluster of smaller buildings of which this was one. The cream coloured wood of the outer wall was cheerful, and the wooden door with grills was exactly like the doors I’ve seen elsewhere in Kerala. It was not hard to imagine the people of the house standing behind it, chatting with passing neighbours.

An unexpected find was this cupboard pushed out of a house into a small verandah by the side of the road. It was not a discard. It was certainly still in use. I stood there and waited for something interesting to pass by so that I could have a photo to remember this odd thing by.