In a Bengali’s life, starting from one’s annaprashan (a baby’s first taste of food) to one’s shradhho (ceremony after death), every single life event, festival, and ritual has one common thread – mishti or sweets. “In Kolkata, at every road corner and junction, you’ll find a mishti shop as commonly as you’ll find a pharmacy,” says Lahana Ghosh, a fourth-generation mishtiwalla. It may, however, be termed a dying legacy now. Tearing up, Lahana explains, “Kids today don’t get excited about going to a mishti shop and trying kheerkodoms,malai chomchoms, or mishti doi.They’re keener on tarts or pastries. The kids of karigars (artisans who make traditional sweets) aren’t entering the trade. The new generations of families who owned mishti businesses don’t find this interesting enough.”
View this post on Instagram
Leaving behind a well-established life and flourishing career in finance in Canada, Lahana Ghosh, 31, is an exception for choosing to return to her “sweet” roots. She came back to her hometown Kolkata to learn the trade and eventually take over the reins of her 100-year-old family business of the iconic mishti shop Jugal’s. “I want to be the generation that stays,” she asserts.
Lahana Ghosh is the granddaughter of Jugal Kishore Ghosh, the founder of Jugal's that’s named after him. He started Jugal’s exactly a century back, in 1923. Today it has four outlets spread across the city, serving close to 100 varieties of freshly made Bengali sweets. Depending on the season, their menu changes to accommodate the specials. To make a tray of mishti takes over 24 hours.
“It’s a gourmet product,” says Lahana, “It has to be handcrafted.” It’s usually priced rather economically, starting from Rs 15 and going up to Rs 35 per piece. After taking the baton from the founder, Lahana’s father Krishna Kali Ghosh has been running the business for years now.
Tracing Mishti’s Ancestry, Tales Of Chenna And Malpua
Early mentions of malpua, a beloved Bengali sweet often touted as the oldest Indian dessert, are found even in the Rig Veda. It was the Portuguese who introduced the concept of curdling milk to make cheese. Mishti today in Kolkata is made from a mixture of milk and sugar, which is turned into chhena.
Kolkata’s mishtiwallas reportedly buy two lakh litres of milk per day, which makes up around 60% of West Bengal’s total milk consumption. To cut wastage while satiating Bengalis’ mishti cravings, CM Mamata Banerjee had taken the decision to let mishti shops remain open for fixed timings even during the stringent coronavirus lockdown.
Special sweet trays, craftily carved into artistic designs like fish es and chonch shells, are an integral part of totto (wedding gifts). When confused about what to take as a greeting when meeting with someone new, mishti is the go-to option. Whether it’s soft shondesh, or warm rosogollas, or a combination of the two in kheerkodoms, every Bengali swears by their personal favourites. Seasonal ones like gur specialities have their own charm. Many, especially the Calcuttan Gen-X, swears by dessert being synonymous with mishti.
“No other culture celebrates their dessert the way Bengalis celebrate mishti,” says Lahana.
A New Age Touch To Family Business
Lahana studied in Kolkata and grew up playing in the sweet factory run by her family. “I know every recipe like the back of my hand. I know the language of mishti. I feel it’s in my blood,” said Lahana.
When she was around 19 years old, Lahana went to Canada, chasing love. Even though that relationship ended soon afterward, she stayed on to study and eventually work in finance for over eight years. She says she always knew she’d come back at some point to work with her father. She didn’t know it would happen so soon.
“When COVID hit, I watched this show called Chef’s Table, where Asma Khan was featured. She is from Park Circus in Kolkata and has gone on to run the popular London restaurant Darjeeling Express. I saw that episode and it changed my life,” recalls Lahana. She knew she had to come back. As fate would have it, soon after, her dad got COVID, which accelerated her decision.
Having lived abroad and having witnessed what marketing and digitisation can do for brands, those were the first things on her agenda with Jugal’s.
Until she came back, Jugal’s barely had an online presence. She started their delivery services through apps like Swiggy and Zomato, crafted their website, started an Instagram handle, and even organised the first-ever Literature Festival on mishti during their centenary celebrations.
View this post on Instagram
Her plan was to digitise the business in six months, and help her dad transition into running the business from home, but that’s not how it worked out.
When she ventured into the intricacies of the business, formed on the backs of an unorganised sector, she realised just how differently it works. “It’s a marathon and not a sprint. In this unorganised sector, it’s the man who’s running the show. Baba does the accounts, the financial decisions, and everything else. So change can only happen gradually,” she says.
Read: Fish Cutlet To Mutton Curry: 10 Food Items To Expect At A Bengali Wedding
Is Mishti Sexist?
With the makers, owners, and most other stakeholders traditionally being men, Lahana’s first struggle is with male dominance.
“One day, I chanced upon a tiny hair strand in one of the dishes, and I went bonkers. I went and agitatedly spoke to the workers in the factory at 10:30 pm, and they kept giving their own excuses and reasonings. They then gathered, went to my dad, and said they want to quit and not hear anything more from this girl, “ she recounts. “They couldn’t stomach the fact that the scolding was coming from a woman. I was heartbroken.”
Microaggressions are common, she says, especially because neither the factories nor the supervising roles ever had women.
Lahana tried to introduce women workers in the kitchens. She firmly believed that women could keep the kitchens cleaner, improve customer service and contribute to several other aspects. But she faced resistance, including a firm “no” from her father. She eventually resorted to introducing women in the storefronts first, and hopes to ease women into the process now.
“It’s frustrating,” she sighs. “Outsiders come and say ‘do it, what’s the problem’ very easily, but they’ve not known how this business works. You can probably take such decisions in the organised sector. Come to the factory or the stores, and you’ll realise how the dynamics play out.”
The workers mostly come from villages and many of them have continued to work for the business generation after generation. “Some of them have been with us for over 40 years, so you can’t disrespect them,” Lahana says.
She can sometimes see workers cringe when she enters because they don't want her there, because it signals a shift. “But I’m gonna power through,” she adds, resolute to make small changes every day.
This male dominance in the business is ironic, she points out, because mishti in household kitchens have traditionally been a woman’s domain. Seasonal specials like peethe puli, pathishapta or Pujo specials like naaru, are usually always made by women. Yet, she witnessed so much resistance if the same women tried to enter the professional kitchens.
Where Mishti Stands Today
As part of her change startegy, Lahana, her twin sister, Angana, and their family got into research about the mishti business, primarily to find out trends, as not much academic research had been done on it so far. While results of the research haven’t been published officially yet, after interviewing different stakeholders in at least 10 districts in Bengal, Lahana has found some emerging trends.
“A mishtiwala’s son is no longer becoming a mishtiwala, and a karigar’s son is no longer becoming a karigar. Nobody wants to stay. I have interviewed 47 stakeholders so far, and everybody said that their kids are not in the mishti business,” she highlights.
View this post on Instagram
This is true even for those graduating from the top food and beverage schools in the country, she says. “People want to become pastry chefs, but not mishti karigars,” she said.
She also sees children not as excited coming to sweet shops as they were in earlier generations. “I do see mishti disappearing a bit, but I don't want to believe that it can ever die. Whenever I see a kid coming to the shop, I give them a free mishti!”
She lists her life goal: “I want to reinforce that mishti is cool, and I want to put it on the global map.”
Innovation and the Way Forward
Since there’s not much innovation or government support, Lahana says there’s much to do in the industry. Jugal’s too, is planning to introduce new aspects to their business, in a bid for mishti to be loved more. “Machines have come in, but they’re quite expensive, so it’s unlikely that the smaller shops can afford them.” She also points to the fact that the shelf life of mishti that’s made from chhena, which can’t be packed and transported like other mithai can be.”
Another issue she highlights is the dicey future of dairy and mishti, so far, is solely dependent on milk. “With the world moving towards going dairy-free, because of the large carbon footprint etc, where do we go? There has been no thought on that front,” she says.
View this post on Instagram
“India is the largest producer of milk in the world, so how has there been no thought on that front? What happens when the fads catch up? Some have tried to make vegan mishti, but where is the testing process for all of this?” she worries.
During their centenary celebrations, trying to look for solutions to many of these issues she observed, she organised a two-day literature festival centred around mishti. It looked at cultural significance, future, health effects and many other underlying trends and aspects of the mishti industry in Bengal. They plan to publish reports of that soon.
Mishti has been all around Lahana, throughout her life, and her passion for it is evident in how fondly she speaks about it. Her eyes light up while talking about her favourite mishti, kheerkodom and their mishti doi. “The creamy texture, the orangish tint from caramelisation and a thick layer of malai on top…,” she gets lost in thoughts for a moment, then reorients and tells me, “Uff, I really can go on and on about it, you know.”
Take charge of your wellness journey—download the HerZindagi app for daily updates on fitness, beauty, and a healthy lifestyle!
Comments
All Comments (0)
Join the conversation