Society

A Dash Of Desert Sand

Is what makes the saral-sukh-sust Bikaneri's bhujia an addiction

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A Dash Of Desert Sand
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The pervasive odour of deep frying and hot sugar syrup envelops the whole town, where grimy kirana and plastic goods stores stand cheek by jowl with crumbling, exquisitely carved red sandstone havelis. Everyone seems to spend their day either making, buying or eating namkeen and mithai—not just bhujia, but also kachoris, jalebis, ghevar, gulab jamun, and—piece de resistance—mirchi pakoras that look like fat little missiles and explode in your mouth. Not much else seems to happen here. A favourite pastime in summer is watching the sand dunes whirl and inch their way right through the twisting narrow streets of the old town, to exit back into the desert again. The invasion of these shifting sand dunes is why Bikaner only has winding lanes and not a single crossroads—otherwise the dunes would simply stop and settle there.

"The Bikaneris have a reputation for being saral, sukh and sust (simple, happy, lazy)," says local artist Mukesh Swami who, along with his elder brother Raju, does exquisite botanical paintings in the Mughal miniature style. Some of these adorn the lush coffee-table book Garden of Life, commissioned by Jackie Kennedy and authored by Naveen Patnaik. "People earn enough from the halwai business, they see no need to exert themselves in any other way," says Mukesh. It's that same laidback temperament that makes them tolerate their absentee MP, film star Dharmendra. "We believed him when he promised us during the campaign that he would spend 300 days a year here," recalls Mukesh. "In two-and-a-half years, he hasn't spent even 300 hours in Bikaner."

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The founder of Haldiram's clearly dreamed bigger and saw further than the typical saral-sukh-sust Bikaneri. From his little shop in Bhujia Bazaar, Haldiram would make frequent forays to Calcutta and other big cities, carrying with him packets of his savouries to give to homesick Marwari relatives and friends there. The demand grew, he saw a huge market out there waiting to be captured, and the seeds of the Haldiram empire were sown. A trip to Singapore introduced his sons to new technology in packaging and, even more exciting, the wonders of the noodle-making machine which, with a bit of adaptation, could turn out bhujia by the thousands of tonnes. The empire grew and grew. After Haldiram's death in 1985, his four sons set up separate branches in Calcutta, Delhi, Nagpur and Bikaner, with an agreement not to sell their products in each other's territory under the Haldiram brand name. To circumvent that rule, the Bikaner branch, which has grander territorial ambitions, has rechristened itself, acquiring the more genteel brandname of Bikaji.

Apart from bhujia, the Bikaji factory produces 5,000 kg of papad a day and, cashing in on another local product available in abundance, a range of canned milk-based sweets, among them Golmatol Rasgullas—Bikaner is now India's largest milk-producing district, supplying some 1.5 lakh litres daily throughout north India. The current head of the Bikaner branch is Deepak Agarwal, Haldiram's 25-year-old great-grandson, who oversees operations from a plush office in the factory grounds. A large porcelain doll occupies pride of place in his office, right behind his desk. Across the street from the factory is his latest toy, the sprawling sandstone Basant Vihar Palace, a turn-of-the-20th century relic of princely Bikaner, which Deepak has recently converted into a heritage hotel. Carefully inspecting packets of namkeen fresh off the assembly line, he assures us it tastes far better than anything on offer in Bhujia Bazaar. We can't say—he didn't offer us any. There is no freeloading off this maharaja.

Ask Bikaneris if their deep-fried, sugar-laden diet makes them worry about things like transfats, clogged arteries and diabetes, and they laugh dismissively. Besides, they have an antidote—camel's milk. It lowers blood sugar and cholesterol like magic, they swear. We baulk at tasting the milk, the dahi or even the camel-cappuccino coffee, but finally try the kulfi—salty-sweet, deliciously creamy, a taste easily acquired. But we leave without trying Bikaner's most prized food—prasad from the Karni Mata temple, which consists of laddoo that's been nibbled at by the resident rats that are worshipped there. There are thousands of them at the temple, sitting in neat circles around bowls of milk and mithai, looking sluggish and overfed—just like us, after two days in Bikaner.

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