For the love of sweets

Rasgulla, Gajar ka Halwa, Balusahi, Besan Ladu, Gulab Jamun, Jalebi, Kalakand, Kheer, Kulfi, Motichur laddu, Lassi, Peda, Burfi, Ras malai, Sohan Halwa, Boondi, Soan Papdi, Chhena gaja, Chhena payesh, Cham cham, Lyangcha, Kalo jam, Malpua, Mihidana, Pantua, Rabri, Sandesh, Rajbhog, Shor bhaja.
How many of the above have you tasted?
I should have put on an introductory disclaimer for all the diabetic patients. I still make it clear that I have no intention to hurt the gustatory sentiments of people suffering from diabetes mellitus. My point is to grab your attention to the outspread variety of Indian sweets notwithstanding I have listed merely few of the most popular ones. I landed up on researching this diversity when I was looking for the reason dessert came into being. You might be amused to learn the birth of “dessert” came from old French word, “desservir” which meant “cleaning the table”. That is what it does, it cleans the table and fills people up over the brim.
Interestingly, like languages, tastes and cultures, ingredients of sweets also differ distinctly regionally. The northern sweets are more filled with milk cream, eastern sweets mostly contain chhena or cheese while southern and western people are obsessed with coconut. West Bengal has a very palatable variants of food and boasts a rich sweet tradition. People normally get stuck with the sensational Rosogolla but there are other delectable sweets which remain hidden from the national limelight. The Kheer Kadam is one of them. Just like Christopher Nolan’s Inception comes with the idea of dream within a dream, so does that of a Kheer Kadam. Just when you bite the the Khoya crust there is a different surprise within. Similarly there are regional exquisite specimens. Namely Jaynagar’s Moya, Bardhaman’s Mihidana and Sitabhog, Krishnanagar’s Sarbhaja and Murshidabad’s Chhana Bora.
Putting aside the taste bud, there is also a huge potential of business with this traditional edible. There are myriads of sweet shops lingering the street corners of our country. But the numbers are quite less when across-the-state acceptance is taken into consideration. Furthermore the numbers are countable who have bothered to capture the global market. Previously there were constraints like the meagre amount of days the quality remained intact. Nowadays with the state-of-art packaging the sweet can remain as it is for months. With the streaming trend of e-commerce, sweets are also available online for order.
The story doesn’t end here. When the sweet business seemed quite promising, I was grieved to learn about the undoing of the Ghantewala. This July the 225-year old sweet shop in the Indian Capital shut itself down. Its Sohan Halwa, was patronized by the Mughals, ministers and celebrities. The enriched crisp disk-shaped sweet made from almonds, pistachios and desi ghee has fallen out of favour in a country with half of the population diabetic.