Paintings in the Kashi Arts Cafe ...

When I visited the Kashi Arts Cafe, before I joyously snarfed luscious mouthfuls of chocolate cake, I gazed at fearless paintings - there, hanging from the walls of a high ceilinged gallery, were paintings to provoke rebellious thought, questioning privilege and power -

The pale Europeans, queuing to enter the shady courtyard beyond, did not look for long at these unsettling images - Sophie and I, however, lingered for some time, at first cast down, then, marvellously, buoyed up by what we saw - 

We saw the faces of snarling policemen from all the world's regimes, complacent apparatchiks, gleaming teeth - then we saw the oppressed peoples of the world, rising up, literate and awakened, beating a cowering policeman, but with rolled up newspapers, not with batons -

We spoke to the artist, P S Jalaja - she was sitting, quiet and watchful, near the entrance to the gallery - I tried to tell her how her paintings had stirred my soul - she smiled gently, looking at me with her cool, intense, gaze -