Latest news with #Ghantewala
The Hindu
01-08-2025
- Business
- The Hindu
Sweet memories
Over the years, the bustling market of Chandni Chowk has experienced everything from the rampage of 1857 to Liberalisation of 1990. It has resiliently risen from ruins and so has Ghantewala, the famous sweet shop in Old Delhi. Launched in 1790 by Lala Sukh Lal Jain, today it is run by the seventh generation of founders. The transformation has been profound, from receiving patronage of Kings and watching the grand palanquins glide by on empty streets, to paying taxes and taking in the everyday cacophony as cycle rickshaws ferry passengers and vehicles of all sizes jostle for space. The story of Ghantewala started with Lala Sukh Lal Jain who would sell his sweets, carrying them in a basket on his head. The basket had a bell that gave him the name 'Ghantewala'. The shop over the years became a permanent fixture in the lives of many local residents. Historian Sohail Hashmi, who has conducted food walks in Chandni Chowk recalls, 'I got addicted to Ghantewala's Sohan halwa in my college days. It was a routine for me to stop over at my friend's place in Ballimaran. We would walk from the campus, have lunch and invariably go to Ghantewala for the dessert.' Atam Aggarwal, an old resident of Navgraha Havelis in the Paranthe Wali Gali, reminisces saving money to buy sweets from the Ghantewala shop during his childhood days. 'The shop and its signature dish Sohan Halwa was so popular that when another shop with a similar name, Shahi Ghantewala, entered the market, it simply failed to build the connection with customers,' says Sohail. Post-liberalisation, several new players emerged as competitors with fusion sweets priced at a lesser rate. 'We also tried to tap into the fusion sweets category, but it didn't resonate with our customers who valued our originality and authenticity,' says Ritesh Gupta, head of operations at Ghantewala Confectioners. The outlet suffered a financial setback in 2015 and had to shut down. Customers called it the death of an icon and expressed their despair through emails and calls. It was the love and support, wrapped in nostalgia that rekindled courage in the family and led them to start the business again. In its second stint, the shop embraced changes to stay put by adding more variety of sweets. The director of Ghantewala, Aryan Jain, brought in his insights on food technology, raw material procurement and unit management. Rasik Kumar Patel, who has lived in Old Delhi since 1957, vouches for the Ghatewala Sohan Halwa. 'The sweet would be brought home for every occasion. I still crave it but today's generation does not value the taste; they would rather have some junk food, he says. The 'Ghanta' (bell) rings no more, but the customers find their way back for the taste wrapped in the warmth of memory. Festivals are the peak time for any sweet shop as it is for Ghantewala confectioners. Once famous only for Sohan halwa, it today offers a lot more. 'Gulab jamun and jeera kachori fly off our shelves, and so does pheni during Ramzan and Teej,' says Ritesh. Now with Raksha Bandhan round the corner, Ghantewala sweets will continue to bring families together in celebration.
Hindustan Times
17-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Delhiwale: Chandni Chowk's new ways
Although it was mashoor for sohan halwa, the sweetshop's boondi laddu would reach closest to perfection. Each round piece topped with a single melon seed, the little laddu would dissolve the instant it was tossed into the mouth. The sustained presence of a culinary landmark, its eventual closure, followed by its re-emergence, is a tribute to old Chandni Chowk. (HT) Old Delhi's Ghantewala Confectioners had been a Chandni Chowk landmark since 1790. It closed its shutters in 2015. The space wasn't orphaned. It changed into a cloth shop. A few years later, the cloth shop closed too. The space shuffled back into a sweetshop—reverting into… the same Ghantewala! The sustained presence of a culinary landmark, its eventual closure, followed by its re-emergence, is a tribute to old Chandni Chowk. But like it or not, this old area is more new than old. The Mughal-era promenade continues to be crammed with vintage mansions and monuments, but it is no museum to bhoole-bhisre mumbo jumbo. With all its chaos and crowds, Chandni Chowk is furiously raw, throbbing wildly to the moment. A sense of that pulsating present is felt, albeit slightly, at the aforementioned sweetshop, whose eighth generation descendent is chatting with a customer in fluent angrezi. The energy is more intense in other Chandni Chowk businesses. All you have to do is to browse the market hoardings. It is revealing to trace the connections the English language legends on the shop banners strike with whatever awareness we might have of Chandni Chowk's fabled past. Let's start with England's Jane Austen. All her drawing room romances end with a dulha-dulhan. If Austen novels were set in Delhi, her heroines and heroes would certainly have relied on Chandni Chowk for their wedding trousseau. The place is full of shops with names like 'Grooms Collection.' One shop specialises in 'Bridal Lehenga' and—hear, hear!—'Girlish Lehenga.' But Chandni Chowk refuses to be boxed into the cliché of a shadi walla market. Sample this unusual bazar banner—an 'arms and ammunition shop.' Or, consider a market corridor next-door to the historic Sikh shrine of Gurudwara Sis Ganj Sahib. This seemingly ordinary corridor displays a stone slab. The inscription on it describes the site as 'Shahi Sunheri Masjid.' The centuries-old mosque is perched directly atop the corridor, and is the fateful place from where invader Nadir Shah supervised the massacre of thousands of Delhiwale in 1739. But this evening, the stone slab has strayed too far from that ghastly history—at least visually. It is partially hidden by a clothing brand's invasive neon hoarding. And so it goes. Other banners, other combos, such as 'Polite Garments' hanging too close to 'Lovebird Lingerie.' Similarly colourful is the rest of Chandni Chowk's signage jungle. While these entrepreneurial banners speak in varied voices, they sing together a chorus, illustrating how forcefully the new ways have taken over the old courtliness of the place. Indeed, one shop banner goes literal about the point—see photo.
