The excellent rasgullas that I had at the non-Bengali owned Sree Khrishna Sweets in central Kolkata in my last trip to the city |
Rasgulla from Joyguru Sweets near my granny’s house |
Didu, incidentally knows how to make rasgullas. She would make them in Delhi along with pantua. Milk was in abundance in Delhi and of good quality, unlike what they found when they moved to Kolkata in the late 1970s after my grandpa retired. In Kolkata hardly anyone made sweets or rasgullas at home. Milk was scarce but sweet shops were not and with the prices of sweets being so reasonable, people happily depended on the parar mishtir dokan rather than make sweets at home.
The roshogolla is a part of our culture, our folklore and the Bengali DNA. We have grown up on stories of rasgulla eating competitions, where experts would know well enough to squeeze out the syrup. Rasgulla was a must in all wedding feasts in Kolkata, the shondesh and ice cream could be negotiable. It’s what kept the city on the move. I remember classmates coming to school with roshogolla and slices of bread in their tiffin boxes. Then there was this elderly mashi (lady) who told her son, who would be out on the roads on work for a sales job, to stop at a sweet shop in between to have a rasgulla or two in between. “Gives energy, is hygienic (so what if the sweet shop was covered with flies) and not expensive too.” Bhaars (earthen pots) full of roshogolla would be the standard treat (‘khawa’ would be the hint) to celebrate everything good that happened in life…a good exam result (only first class first would do), getting a job (a government job of course), a birth in the family, one’s favourite football team winning the derby or when one lost a bet for that matter. Diabetes be damned, what could be ‘healthier’ that cottage cheese boiled in sugar syrup right? There was this time in college when one of our classmates had jaundice. Her folks allowed her to have rasgullas from the local shop, boiled again at home of course. Bengal, you could say, ran on roshogollas from what I remember from my childhood days in Kolkata.
Update 17/11/17 This is what Dr Sudipta Chakravarty, a Bengali who lives in Jaipur and posted this tweeted:
The sweet smell of victory. I bought these rojoni gondhas (tube roses) from the flower seller in our lane at Bandra. The newspaper wrapping was done by him. This is not a political statement |
Appendix:
1. Rohohsyo means mystery
2. Kolkata is not spelt asKolkatta
3. Kolkata is pronounced – Koal (Koala bear)- kaata and not call-katta
4. No rasgullas were eaten during the writing of this article