Prarthana Prasad says that her founding of Beku, a café, bakery, and bookstore, which just opened its doors to the public, came from a very “selfish place of creating the kind of space that I would have loved to go to.” The Bengaluru-based queer influencer says there are not many experiential places in the city, especially in South Bengaluru, where Beku is located. “It is a common complaint that people make about Bengaluru: that there is nothing to do, only restaurants and pubs to go to,” says Prarthana.
Beku, which is all set to host a day-long launch event on August 17, hopes to change this, “taking the best of both worlds, an independent bookshop and a café, and bringing it together,” says Prarthana, who was inspired by independent bookshops in Delhi as well as Champaca, back home. “I just love the feeling of walking into these spaces, and wanted to have something like that closer to me.”
Beku, which means want in Kannada, is both a pun on the word bake (“because the bakery is a large part of what we are doing at Beku”) as well as a nod to Kannada, which is close to her heart. A true-blue Bengalurean, Prarthana, whose mother is a Kannada author, conjured up this name at a traffic signal in the city. “Most of us Bengalureans get our best ideas when we are stuck in traffic,” she quips. “I thought Beku would be a really fun name because it is the kind of space that people want, that I definitely want as well.”
