Nights of karaoke and food

I always look forward to spending the weekends with my family — father Krishnaprasad, mother Mangala, brother Gourang and sister-in-law Sahana. During the weekend, there are a lot of things we do together, but never get bored of each other’s company. Our hectic work schedules leave us with a little time to spend at home and whenever we get sometime, we cherish it and make most of every minute.

I sleep into the morning on any holiday and Friday is no different. I wake up late on a Friday morning only to have a delicious brunch, cooked by my mother. The brunch is usually a special curry called ‘daali toi’ which is a North Canara dish and my mother is really good at making it. It’s a sort of ‘dal’ which goes best with rice. My mother is from Goa and father, a Konkani, is from Bangalore, so I always have the best of Goan and Konkan cuisine. If I have a movie release on a Friday, then my father and mother
always watch it the first day, first show, in the theatre and we always celebrate the release with a dinner at our favourite restaurant — ‘Red Bamboo Shoots’, on
Museum Road.

If we aren’t out for dinner on a Friday night, it is always mum’s special ‘pav baaji’, which she makes really well. After dinner, we head out for a drive to have ice-cream from Corner House on Residency Road. I usually go in for a cake fudge, which my mother ends up finishing because I am never able to do justice to the large portions. My father loves the litchi flavour, while my  brother prefers ‘Death by Chocolate’.

If we are travelling out on a Saturday and Sunday, we pack our bags and head out. If we aren’t, then Saturday is my day to experiment in the kitchen. I bake cakes, cookies and I’ve been extremely successful in making certain exclusive desserts and my latest successful experiment is the ‘panna cotta’, an Italian dessert and ‘tiramisu’. I bake delicious chocolate cakes, cup cakes, maple syrup cookies. I always bake a Black Forest cake every Christmas because it is one of my favourite festivals. I went to a  convent school and my love for Christmas began there. Every year, I decorate my house, make a crib by sowing ragi seeds, well in advance, so that I get a real crib by Christmas time. And, this year, Christmas falls on a Friday and I hope to make the most of the
Christmas weekend.

On Saturday evening, my family and a few of our close friends, sit and play a round of Scrabble or we have a karaoke nights. We’ve bought an entire karaoke system complete with the mic and the projector that beams out the lyrics. So, it’s like a proper musical night and my brother and I always take the lead. We usually order in dinner or if my mum’s in a mood then she makes ‘peas pulao’ and ‘gobi manchurian’. I sometimes go shopping, something that I totally hate doing. I may not enjoy going to malls and very crowded shopping areas but I have a fetish for supermarkets. The fact that one gets every conceivable thing under one roof has always left me curious. I go to the supermarket and end up buying, sometimes, the most insignificant of things, which could be a new wafer or even a new hand sanitiser. But these small purchases leave me thrilled.

All our late nights are planned on a Friday and Saturday and on a Sunday,
we usually sober down and end up preparing for Monday.

People may find it hard to believe it, when I say, that I have never ventured out of the house alone. My father or mother always accompany me. It’s usually my mother and we both end up doing a lot of crazy things together. Somehow, the idea of going out with friends just to chill has never made me happy. I would rather stay at home. I am extremely close to my parents and they know everything that’s going on in my life. My weekends are truly special because I end up spending time with the people I love the most —  my parents.

As told to Nina C George