Paradise regained

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Taj Mahal is white, and gajar halwa is red. But gajar halwa can also be white.

White carrot halwa annually makes its winter debut at the landmark Sheeren Bhawan. The rare dessert is in fact sighted only at this pre-partition mithai shop in Old Delhi’s Chitli Qabar Chowk.

This rainy afternoon, the sky is gloomy grey, the cold air is smoggy, but fragrant steam is rising enthusiastically from the halwa platter atop the shop counter. “We launched the halwa four-five days ago,” says attendant Mansoor in a nonchalant tone.

A burner below the gigantic brass platter is keeping the halwa tongue-searing hot. Decorated on one corner with generous endowments of kaaju-pista, the dish is looking like a great mass of grated mooli that has been shallow-fried (in “shudh desi ghee”!) to pale gold. Now, Mansoor stirs the halwa. More steam escapes out into the Chitli Qabar air.

The shop was founded more than a hundred years ago by one Fayazuddin. Any Purani Dilli gourmand will attest that Fayazuddin’s descendants have shepherded the legacy into our lifetime quite competently. The family lives in an old mansion, a lane away, in Pahari Rajaan (with many pigeons on the roof). The founder’s great-grandson once confirmed to this reporter that the white carrot of the halwa is neither mooli (“of course not!”), nor a myth. White carrot is actually called sunheri gajar (golden carrot), and the shop gets its supply from a Ghaziabad farm.

Priced at 800 per kg, the halwa here is a handiwork of the mithai shop’s many cooks, each of whom identifies himself as a kaarigar, or artisan. Mansoor, the man at the counter, lists the artisans who have been at the mithai shop kitchen for years. Bharat, Vishnu, Alam, Bhooore Singh and Ustad Suger Singh Tomar, Sheeren Bhawan’s chief cook. All these men came to the capital from far-off villages of UP and MP—Ustad Suger Singh Tomar is from Morena. They established themselves in the historic quarter, and gradually became our fellow Delhiwale by assiduously cultivating their life in a legacy establishment. Indeed, the hard work and creative talent of these migrants is keeping the mithai shop’s classic reputation inviolate.

That said, one may get the halwa packed in the shop’s characterless plastic dabba for home consumption. The true pleasure of the dish, however, lies in being bold enough to brave the winter, and reach the Walled City shop late at night, gobbling down a steaming hot portion of the halwa right beside the crowded street. It then feels like paradise regained.