Music, art and a full table.

Small gatherings, music played close and walls that change, with good food and coffee at the centre.

More than what is on the plate.

Food first, always. Then the song, the painting and the conversation that grow around it.

Annara takes its name from two Kannada words. Anna is food, grain and sustenance. Ahara is nourishment in a broader sense: what we eat, see, hear, feel and share. The culture at Annara grows from that second word.

So alongside the food and the filter coffee, we are making room for the things that feed a neighbourhood in quieter ways: a song heard up close, a painting you only notice on your third visit, a conversation that carries on long after the plates are cleared.

None of it is meant to be grand or formal. We hope it feels like an extension of the table: warm, unhurried and easy to be part of, whether you come with family, with friends or on your own.

Hands of a small audience clapping softly, shawls folded over their laps, in late afternoon window light

ಆಹಾರahara

The gatherings we are making room for.

Three kinds of gathering, each small enough to feel personal and each built around the same table as the food. These are our intentions; the details will follow as each one is planned.

Two hands playing a bamboo flute in warm lamplight, a handloom sleeve beside it

Music, up close

Intimate performances where the music is close enough to feel and the coffee keeps coming.

Some music is best heard from a few feet away: close enough to see fingers move, to catch the breath before a phrase, to feel a room go quiet together. We would love Annara to have evenings like that, whether the sound comes from a veena, a flute, a voice or a guitar from down the road.

We picture unhurried sets, a small and attentive room, and filter coffee doing the rounds between pieces. Classical, folk or something entirely new: what matters is the closeness.

Hands lifting a freshly pulled rust linocut of a leaf from its carved block, an ink tray and roller beside it

Art on the walls

Room for local artists, with work that changes and gives regulars something new to discover.

Walls are one of the quietest ways a café can show who it is for. We are making room on ours for painters, illustrators, photographers and printmakers, with work that changes from season to season rather than staying put for years.

For regulars, that means something new to notice over a familiar coffee. For artists, it means a warm room where people sit long enough to really look, and perhaps to ask about the person who made it.

Seen from above, four pairs of hands holding open books around a round table, with filter coffee and kodubale in the middle

Conversations and ideas

Small gatherings for readers, makers and curious minds, around a shared table.

We are thinking of things like a book club that meets over breakfast, a potter explaining how a glaze behaves in the kiln, or a few friends comparing notes on a favourite Kannada novel. Ideas travel well around a table, especially one with food on it.

These gatherings will be small by design, so that everyone can be heard and nobody feels like an audience. Bring a question, a notebook, or simply your curiosity.

Low cane stools and floor cushions set out across a red oxide floor, a cropped figure carrying in two more

How gatherings will work.

Every gathering will be announced clearly and ahead of time, somewhere easy to find.

When something is planned, the details will appear here on this page first, and you can always ask us about it on WhatsApp. No hunting through stories, no guessing from a poster in the window.

Each announcement will tell you

Date: The day it happens, shared early enough to plan around.
Time: When to arrive, and roughly how long it will run.
Format: Music, an exhibition, a reading, a talk or something hands-on.
Access: Who it is for and how to join, stated plainly so nobody has to guess.

An enquiry is not a booking

Writing to us about a gathering is a lovely way to tell us you are interested, and we always enjoy hearing it. It does not hold a place, though. If a gathering ever needs one, its announcement will explain exactly how that works.

What is on right now

Nothing yet, and we would rather show you an honest empty page than a made-up calendar. The first gatherings will be listed here as soon as they are confirmed. Until then, ask us anything about them on WhatsApp.

Ask about gatherings

Two hands passing a wooden shuttle through ivory warp threads on a small handloom, indigo striped cloth growing below

An open invitation to artists, musicians and makers.

If you play, paint, write, make or bring people together, there may be a place for your work at Annara. We are especially keen to meet people from Vidyaranyapura and the neighbourhoods around it, though good ideas are welcome from anywhere in Bengaluru.

You do not need a polished proposal. Tell us who you are, share a link or two, and describe what you have in mind. Every collaboration here starts the same way: with a conversation.

Collaborate with Annara WhatsApp

Continue exploring

What would you come along for?

Music on a weekday evening, a reading over breakfast, new work on the walls: tell us what you would love to find at Annara, and it will help shape the first gatherings.

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