Home is where the music is

Mostly my weekends are reserved for gigs. I am part of two entities - ‘Swarathma’ and ‘Vasu Dixit Collective’ - and either of them may have a show. Since many of these shows are outside Bengaluru, travelling is inevitable.

So the weekend is spent travelling and performing and Mondays are usually my holidays. I don’t go for meetings or do any sort of work on Mondays.

When I don’t have shows or commitments, I prefer staying in my house- it may sound unusual but my wife and I love our house; we think of it as our resort. It is a bright and airy space with an open terrace and a few plants.

While there, I enjoy cooking or making tea, listening to music or watching a movie. I am a good cook and can make ‘dosa’, ‘chappathi’, rice, ‘sambhar’, ‘rasam’, curries, ‘Bisi Bele Bath’, ‘upma’ and ‘poha’.

My speciality is ‘Bendekai Gojju’ (ladies finger curry). I am a vegetarian and all this is enough for me. So when my wife is travelling, she has no worries because she knows that I can take care of myself.  I am kind of conventional when it comes to food, my wife is the more experimental one.

And it might look slightly out of fashion but I am not a foodie. I have heard people talk about how one should have a specific dish at a certain restaurant during a particular time of the day with the sunshine falling on the plate at a particular angle! I am really not fussy about my food and I can eat any vegetarian food.

I also make very good tea and coffee. At home, whenever my wife wants some tea herself, she will ask me ‘Shall I make some tea?’. And automatically I will say ‘No no, I will make it’. It’s her way of telling me to make tea.

Even when I go to Mysuru, my home town, I help my mother with the food. I usually prefer going to Mysuru in between the week so that I can take leave and go. Since I am my own boss, this is not an issue.

I don’t go out with friends to a pub or party and all. I would rather have people coming home or I go over to their place. There are a few friends whom I go and meet once in two weeks or so.

Apart from this, I step out to watch musical performances if it is a band I like. I also go to watch plays occasionally at Ranga Shankara, which is near to my place.

On the rare days when both Bindhu and I have an off, we watch movies, either at home or in the theatre. Sometimes we take a walk at the small lake near our house, cook together or do a bit of gardening. Clothes are my department so I have to put the clothes in for wash, dry and fold them.

We have a huge collection of movies. I love watching realistic films in any language while Bindhu loves sci-fi films. But she recently watched ‘Premam’ and loved it. I have to watch it again because I missed a sizeable part as I was making ‘dosa’.

My weekends now are spent doing what I love -- travelling, playing music or being at home with my wife. It may not sound very ‘rockstar-ish’ but I am a domestic animal and I like it that way.