Why 32?
A cat's ear has 32 muscles. Each one helps us swivel, tilt, and tune into exactly what matters.
32 paw-picked experiences, updated every month by the cats who call this place home. Whether you're here for the Biennale, the food, or just the light on the harbour at dusk, we've got you.
Last updated: February 11, 2026. Join our Whatsapp Channel for updates, or simply sign up here for email updates on the latest things to do in Fort Kochi and insider details.
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1. Kochi Art Biennale
India's Largest Contemporary Art Festival Biennale runs until March 31, 2026, across heritage venues in Fort Kochi, Mattancherry. This edition leans heavily into performance and process — you might walk into a warehouse and find art being made in front of you. With 66 artists from 20+ countries, this isn't just a gallery visit. It's an immersion.
See Ultimate Guide & Map to Biennale >
2. Hallucinations of an Artifact — The Dancing Girl Comes Alive
A 4,000-year-old bronze figurine breaks free from her museum case through dance and AI — and finally talks back. Everyone has a story about the Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-daro. Pakistan says she's theirs. India once rebranded her as the goddess Parvati. She's been turned into propaganda, dressed up in pink skin, and labelled "Mother" at a government exhibition. But nobody ever asked what she thinks. Choreographer Mandeep Raikhy and performers Akanksha Kumari and Manju Sharma change that
Feb 14 & 15 — 5:30-6:30 PM | Details >
3. Fort Kochi Mental Health Festival
A full-day festival with 30+ activities that replaces screens with human connection — sound healing, laughter yoga, clay work, standup comedy, and a percussion jam to close the night. It's held at Pallathu Raman Memorial Park — a green heritage-zone ground in the Veli neighbourhood of Fort Kochi, named after the Malayalam poet Pallath Raman.
Feb 14, 9.30AM Onwards | Map >
4. Taala Tamate
The Tamate (also called Parai in Tamil Nadu) is one of India's oldest percussion instruments. For centuries, it has been the heartbeat of Dalit and transgender communities — marking births, mourning deaths, carrying the rhythm of an entire life. But the communities who played it were pushed to the margins, and the drum was silenced along with them. The rhythm becomes movement, the movement becomes memory, and the performance pulls centuries of caste, exclusion, and celebration into a single evening on the Aspinwall.
Feb 15, Fort Kochi | Details >
5. Arka Kinari — Indian Ocean Tour
14 Feb, 7-8 PM | 📍 Aspinwall >
6. Students' Biennale
Where India's young artists show work that's often rawer and more urgent than the main exhibition. Showcases emerging artists from colleges across India. This is where you'll see what Indian art looks like in five years.
Till March 31st | See Details >
7. Mattancherry Food Walk
A 10–12 stop culinary crawl through the lanes where Gujarati samosas, Malabar biryani, and Punjab-thick lassi exist on the same street. Mattancherry isn't just one cuisine — it's layers of communities who arrived by sea and stayed, cooking what they knew.
13 Feb | Book Today >
8. Kitchen Alchemy by Children
1 Feb – 31 Mar 2026 | Details >
9. Archaeological Camera — Exhibition
Kerala has 2,600-year-old rock art, megalithic burial caves, and prehistoric petroglyphs — and most Keralites have never heard of them. This exhibition changes that. Across eight prehistoric sites in Kerala — from the cattle geoglyphs of Ettukudukka in Kannur to the red ochre rock paintings of Marayoor in the Western Ghats to the 2,600-year-old megalithic cave at Kakkodi discovered accidentally during house construction — Mohamed A's photographs stop being documentation and become artefacts in their own right.
Feb 2026, Fort Kochi | Details >
10. Memories of a Land
Red soil becomes a witness to centuries of displacement in this powerful installation about India's Santal Adivasi community.The laterite landscapes of West Bengal are disappearing — their red soil, once used for traditional Santal mud houses, is being swallowed by concrete from government and private developers. Tanmoy Dutta turns this loss into a multi-layered installation mixing oil paintings, sculptures, etchings, photographs, and objects collected directly from the land. The red earth is everywhere in this work — it refuses to let you forget what's being erased.
Till March 31st | Details >
11. How to Sit With Conflict, Not Solve It
What if conflict isn't something to solve, but something to sit with? At this free workshop, facilitator Aishwarya Shrivastav guides you through sensing, listening, and collective making — not toward agreement, but toward understanding why you disagree. The session ends with participants creating a "Patchwork of Differences," where everyone contributes fragments of expression placed together without hierarchy or correction. No neat conclusions, no forced consensus — just the rare experience of being in a room where disagreement is treated as something productive.
12 Feb, 10AM – 12PM | Register >
12. Be inspired by the Women of Golden Bridge Pottery
In 1971, two travellers set up a coconut-leaf shed next to a railway line in Pondicherry. Fifty-five years later, the pottery they built has shaped nearly every serious ceramicist in India — and four of those artists are showing in Fort Kochi right now. Each absorbed a different version of the Golden Bridge experience, and the exhibition is a quiet study in how the same lineage produces four distinct voices in clay.
6–23 February 2026 | Details >
13. Mehboob Memorial Orchestra
Every Friday evening, singers of all ages, religions, and skill levels climb a narrow staircase near Aspinwall Junction and lose themselves in Bollywood classics, ghazals, and Malayalam melodies — keeping alive a Deccani musical tradition that's been part of Kochi's soundscape since the 1950s. "Friday Harmony" — an open karaoke-style gathering where anyone can walk in and sing. No language restrictions, no auditions.
Every Friday 6.30 PM | Details >
14. A Taste of Tibetan in Fort Kochi
Two tiny Tibetan kitchens sit within a minute's walk of each other near Fort Kochi's most famous church — and both carry stories of exile, migration, and recipes that crossed the Himalayas to reach coastal Kerala.
See Details & Plan >
15. India's First Water Metro
It's in Kochi, and it's the single best way to arrive in Fort Kochi: air-conditioned electric boats, reasoanbly priced tickets, and a backwater view that no luxury car can match. The Kochi Water Metro connects the mainland to Fort Kochi, Mattancherry, Vypin, and the backwater islands via a network of electric-hybrid boats that run roughly every 15–20 minutes during peak hours.
Route Map & Timings >
16. A Sonic Journey Across Archipelagos
Close your eyes and travel through the least-charted ports of Southeast Asia — guided only by sound. Laut Loud is an immersive listening session that takes you on a sonic voyage through rare and disappearing musical traditions from coastal communities across the Indonesian archipelago. Curated by writer-sailor Raka Ibrahim and photographer-archivist Hibatul Hakim — both crew members aboard Arka Kinari, a 70-ton sailing ship that has been crossing oceans since 2019 as a floating cultural platform — the session draws from recordings made during their actual sailing seasons
3-5PM, Feb 13 | ABC Water Metro >
17. Mathroo Basha
His TED talk has 50 million views. He declined a British Empire Medal! "Mathroo Basha" means "Mother Tongue" in Gujarati. After several first-generation immigrants in his working-class Brit-Gujarati family passed away, London-based artist Hetain Patel began recording the women who remained — audio interviews in Gujarati about inheritance, loss, and the future. In this 45-minute performance, he responds physically to those voices, his body becoming the conduit for stories that language alone can't carry. Dates: 11 Feb 11:30 AM–12:30 PM · 14 Feb 5:30–6:30 PM
11 & 14 Feb | Anand Warehouse >
18. Under the Mangosteen Tree
One of India's most celebrated English-language theatre adaptations of Vaikom Muhammad Basheer brings the beloved writer's world alive in our beloved Fort Kochi. Directed by Rajiv Krishnan, the production weaves together ten of Basheer's short stories into a seamless, non-linear narrative where the writer himself appears as narrator, participant, and witness. Performed entirely in English, it captures Basheer's extraordinary range — the tenderness of Mathilukal, the absurdity of Viswavikhayatamaya Mookku, all threaded together by love, humour, and pathos.
14 Feb, 7:00 PM | Bastion Bungalow >
19. Drawn Mediations
This isn't your typical sketching class. "Drawn Mediations" is a drawing workshop that looks at anatomy and bodily difference through a more-than-human lens — meaning you'll explore how bodies connect across species, not just within the human form. It's led by Anju Acharya, a Kerala-born contemporary artist whose work blurs the line between scientific observation and deep emotion.
12 Feb, 10AM – 1PM | Bastion Bungalow >
20. Art, Conflict, and the Thinking Citizen
What if the most important conflicts aren't "out there" — but the ones you carry inside your own head? Shruti Sharma invites you to make a personal "conflict journal." You won't be debating politics or picking sides. Instead, through writing and art exercises Shruti helps you notice the everyday tensions you live with — the ones between communities, between people, and within yourself.
12 Feb, 2 PM – 4 PM | Bastion Bungalow >
21. An Interactive Performance with The Little Prince
If you've ever read The Little Prince, you already know it's a children's book that hits harder as an adult. This interactive workshop by Abhishek Kukreja uses the story as a starting point to explore what we fail to see — in ourselves, in others, in the world around us. Abhishek's approach blends cinema, performance, and psychoanalytic thinking to get young people and adults alike to reflect through creative expression rather than lecture. Expect storytelling, movement, and group exercises.
13 Feb, 10AM – 4PM | ABC Water Metro >
22. Hidden Food Spots
Rawal Lassi - Best lassi in town. Club music, no seats, no nonsense — just stand and drink. Lassy House Salt lassi option and actual chairs. Shantilal S Mithaiwala Tiny jalebi babies that crunch like they have something to prove. Samosas and dhoklas too. Nooriya Hotel Erachi Choru (meat rice) at lunch — the kind of plate where the rice has already absorbed all the arguments about who makes it best. Hotel City Star (Balan Chetan Kada) Morning-only. Mutton chops, beef roast, parottas. Get here before 9 AM or get regret.
Location Maps >
23. Kerala Traditional Meals (Sadhya)
Location Maps >
24. Burgers of Club House
French omelettes for breakfast, beef burgers for dinner, and one of the only places in Fort Kochi still serving food after 10 PM. Biennale pit stop on a street where spice traders used to haggle.
Princess Street | Details >
25. Expression of Fragility
15,000 terracotta pieces made by 15 pairs of hands, each sold for just one rupee — this is what traditional craft looks like when it refuses to disappear. Durgesh Prajapati grew up in a potter family in Uttar Pradesh. For this Students' Biennale installation, he worked with 14 Kumhar artisans from his own village to shape 15,000 small terracotta pieces — many inspired by the humble diya, the earthen lamp found in every Indian home. No two pieces are the same. Each one carries the fingerprint of its maker. What you see is not just art on display — it is an entire community making itself visible inside a gallery.
Fort Kochi | Details >
26. Le Té by Iyami
Fort Kochi | Details >
27. Beer, Wine & Spirits
Francis — Chillest beer in Fort Kochi. Order the pork sausages, sit in the courtyard, and forget you had plans. Seagull — Cold beer, waterfront seat, cargo ships rolling past. The view does all the work. Nettoor Toddy Shop — Fresh toddy and proper Kerala food. Not in Fort Kochi — you'll need to ride out to Nettoor. Worth it. Kerala State Beverages Corporation Outlet (Bevco) — The government liquor shop. First floor for bulk buying. Don't let the crowd scare you — queuing for booze is our unofficial hobby.
Fort Kochi | Details >
28. Fort Kochi Cafe Guide
Kashi Art Café — Gallery first, café second. Good vegan options, better art on the walls. Burger Street. Lila — Art, food, and Wi-Fi that actually works. Digital nomads live here. Ridsdale Road. Trouvaille — AC that hits like salvation in Kerala heat. Reliable Wi-Fi. Loving Earth — Fully vegan, fully committed. Great outdoor seating. Napier Street. Sometimes there's yoga happening — don't panic. Pandhal at David Hall — Live music, art exhibitions, good food — all inside a heritage building on Parade Ground. The cultural anchor of Fort Kochi's café scene. French Toast — Quick breakfast, solid coffee, crumbs everywhere. Near St. Francis Church. Get in, eat, move. Canvas — Wood-fired pizzas that fellow regulars swear by. Good for when you want more than café food but don't want a full restaurant.
In Fort Kochi | Details >
29. Paradesi Jews Synagogue
India's oldest functioning synagogue, built in 1568 — where 18th-century Chinese floor tiles, Belgian glass chandeliers, and four Torah scrolls sit together in one small room in Mattancherry. Step inside and look down first — the floor is covered in hand-painted blue-and-white tiles imported from China in the 18th century, each one unique. Then look up at the Belgian glass chandeliers hanging from the wooden ceiling. Behind a brass-railed pulpit sits a carved teak ark holding four Torah scrolls dressed in gold and silver.
In Jew Town | Details >
30. Mattancherry Palace
Built by the Portuguese in the 1500s as a gift to the King of Kochi, this palace holds some of the finest Hindu murals in India — and floors made from egg whites and burnt coconut shells. Inside, the real showstopper is upstairs: a 100-square-metre Ramayana mural painted in the 17th or 18th century, covering entire walls with scenes of Sita, Rama, and Hanuman in vivid colour. Even the floors tell a story — that glossy black surface isn't marble, it's a traditional Kerala mix of lime, egg whites, plant juices, and burnt coconut shells.
Near Paradesi Synagogue | Details >
31. Poovath Street Murals
Poovath Street is one of several art-covered streets in Fort Kochi, but this one hits different. A community mural project connected to the Fearless Collective — an initiative where marginalized communities reclaim public space through art — brought together queer artists and local volunteers to paint bold, colourful portraits on the walls. The idea is simple and powerful: when you walk a street at odd hours and see a portrait of someone who looks like you, you feel like you belong.
Map Location | Details >
32. Books in Fort Kochi
Fort Kochi has a quiet bookstore scene that most visitors walk right past. Kochi Books on Princess Street is a small and more curated, sitting on the second floor with a strong selection of books on Indian religion, spirituality, history, and languages — great for travellers looking to understand the India beyond the surface. Idiom Book Sellers on Bastion Street (next to the Post Office) has everything from Kerala travelogues and short stories to yoga guides and graphic comics, plus second-hand books at cheaper rates and postcards you can mail from the Post Office right opposite.
Map Location | Details >That's 32 out of the 32! Now Go Explore while we carefully update new things to do.
Fort Kochi doesn't need a tourist brochure. It needs someone who lives here to point you in the right direction. That's what we do — every day, an updated list of 32 things, one for every muscle in a cat's ear. We are sharp!
Planning around the Biennale? Read our Complete Guide to the Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2025 for venue maps, daily schedules, and artist highlights.
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