BENGALURU: Amidst a light evening drizzle, actor Kriti Kharbanda joins a group of people huddled outside Maeva, an artisanal brand that has just launched its first retail store in Indiranagar. Sporting an orange jumpsuit, the actor keenly takes a look at the various displays and keepsakes placed in the store, especially the vanilla pound cake scented products.
“You know in Bangalore, you get these vanilla pound cakes that Mummy brings home and it just smells like a bakery. It brings back a lot of memories from my childhood,” says the Bollywood actor, who made her acting debut with the Telugu film Boni in 2009. She subsequently went on to star in films such as the Kannada film Super Ranga, for which she won a SIIMA Award, the Telugu film Bruce Lee: The Fighter and, most recently, 14 Phere in July this year.
Born in New Delhi, Kharbanda moved to Bengaluru in the ’90s with her family. Having spent her childhood here, she says, “Indiranagar is home.” The actor also did her schooling at Baldwin Girls’ High School and Bishop Cotton Girls’ School, citing Richmond Town as another one of her favourite places in Bengaluru thanks to spending much of her childhood in the area.
Though her parents continue to live here, the actor relocated to Mumbai, where she currently lives. It’s been a tough year with both her parents testing positive for Covid. “But Bengaluru has been very good, you have to get tested to step in, so I feel a little happier that my parents are here. I feel like they’re in a surrounding that’s going to take care of them.”
Kharbanda visited the city in August for the first time since the lockdown. “Again for an event, but I met my parents for the first time in a year, seven months and 23 days to be precise,” she says. She laughs, adding, “And if I have one day off I come running back to Bengaluru.”
A visit to the city is incomplete without dropping into Sweet Chariot, where she relishes their chicken lasagna and chocolate mousse cake. Talking about the close proximity of the bakery to her schools, she says, “That used to be my favourite joint, the most affordable one we had for school students,” she laughs, adding that the Lavelle Road Café Coffee Day was another one of her frequent hangout spots alongside Shiv Sagar and Commercial Street. “I’ve always been a foodie, I love food of every kind, for me Donne biryani is a favourite. So every time I come, that’s always something that comes home with me, I have to bring Donne biryani home,” she says.
On whether she noticed anything different in Bengaluru from before the lockdown, she says it definitely feels more greener. “It feels like the Garden City again and that is something I totally enjoy,” she says, adding, “More than anything else, people have, all over our country, changed quite a bit. We’ve become warmer, nicer people because suddenly life has become so uncertain.”