The painter’s palate
Artist Babneet Lakhesar, a.k.a. Babbu the Painter, applies her artistic flair to creating a spread that puts pleasure first
This is one in an occasional series of high-profile people sharing their picnic essentials.
Toronto artist Babneet Lakhesar doesn’t picnic very often, but when she does, the 23-year-old’s focus is on the food — she’s packed her favourite Indian snacks — rather than the decor.
“I love eating,” says Lakhesar, better known as Babbu the Painter, who has more than 40,000 followers on Instagram and counts actress/writer Mindy Kaling, another foodie, among her fans. Like Kaling’s character Mindy Lahiri on The Mindy
Project, Lakhesar loves to eat. “I’m that girl who can’t eat a big amount of food in one sitting, but I’ll always be munching cucumbers or chips or something,” she says, adding, “Sometimes I’m not even hungry, but I just want to eat something.”
Lakhesar says when she does picnic, she really enjoys it, and her perfect picnic is made up of food that brings her pleasure.
“You’re just hanging out, eating and it’s kind of stressful because you’re like, ‘Should I be doing something more with my life right now?’ ” she jokes.
Lakhesar is known for her fusion of the West with her South Asian roots, found in her colourful streetwear and hand-painted clothes. While her picnic is all about the food, her artistic flair is present. She’s dressed for the occasion in a hand-painted dress with “Bakwaas” — a Hindi word meaning “bull----” — painted all over it, and matching shoes.
Lakhesar chose leafy Trinity Bellwoods Park over her favourite location, the beach, for a shady afternoon picnic.
“I’m that girl who can’t eat a big amount of food in one sitting, but I’ll always be munching.” BABNEET LAKHESAR ARTIST
“I haven’t been here in a while and I thought it would be fitting for a picnic — and it makes me sound more Toronto,” she laughs.
She brought a treasured blanket, hand-embroidered in India, to sit on. It came with her when her family moved to Canada.
“Since then I’ve kind of had it in my room and I use it as a backdrop just to take photos because I really like it and think it’s cute,” Lakhesar says. “It’s a keepsake and it’s pretty.”
This picnic is a relatively healthy spread — a mix of homemade food and store-bought treats. An Indian milk jug that Lakhesar hand-painted is filled with homemade lassi, a slightly spicy and tangy yogurt drink.
“I drink lassi on the regular,” she says. “Every time I would go to Indian restaurants I would order a shot of spiced rum and I would just mix it in with my lassi and start drinking it as a nighttime beverage. And now I just do it every time I want to get day drunk.”
Other must-have picnic foods are her mom’s homemade parsnip pa- rathas, a breakfast staple Lakhesar eats with carrot achar, or pickled carrot, which her aunt makes.
“It’s not really spicy, and it’s nice because the carrots are usually sweet so they complement each other.”