The Carvalhos - Antonio, Josefina and Amanda are as busy as can be this Bandra Fair because they have set up their stall again for Bandra Fair this year.
The family is continuing a legacy that goes back to more than 80 years ago when Carvalho's mother first set up a stall at Bandra Fair at Mount Mary's Basilica in the 1940s.
After his father died in 1970, Carvalho and his brother started helping their mother to continue the stall. However, after 1995, when their mother died, both of them started handling the stall. While his brother used to make kadio bodios, he used to make the other Goan sweets. Now, 26 years later, he has taken over the making of the kadio bodios because his brother died just before the Covid-19 pandemic.
Antonio, Josefina, Amanda, and a family friend make the different sweets by hand. At the Bandra Fair, they sell kadio bodios, sugar coated cashews, peanut jaggery chikki, boondi and sev laddoos, as well as Goan specials like doce, dodol, pinag, Bolinas, Bath cake, and even Prawn Balchao.
Over the last five decades, Antonio, who has been at the stall since 1970, has seen many changes at Bandra Fair and misses every bit of it. He says earlier people used to come and enjoy the fair and make a picnic out of it. However, that has changed because of the restrictions.
Currently, Amanda manages the stall after work with the help of some family friends. Since making sweets is quite tiring and hectic, the Bandra local has asked her father to stop but she says he wants to continue his family's legacy for as long as he can.
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