Bikaner is synonymous with sweets, bhujia and the famous accompaniment to every Marwari household meal, the papad made from varieties of flours and pulses. My family and I used to visit the city to meet my grandparents and extended family during summer vacations or to attend weddings and festivals.
Uncles and aunts will invite us and serve elaborate meals prepared at home with some sweets bought from outside, such as Rajbhog, the saffron-flavoured variety of the rasgulla, katlis made from almonds or cashews, Dilkushar, Moti Paak, sweets best served cold such as Ganderi or other milk-made sweets such as sandesh or chena murki.
Often during our stay, we would visit the temples of our ancestral deities and offer prasad of puffed rice, coconut, and sweets such as pedas or boondi or ladoos to the deity. We were made to finish the prasad within the premises of the temple by our elders, to which we only happily obliged.
During feasts or meals prepared for special occasions, family members usually ate together in a giant thaal. The sweets were served always as a custom, as starters of the meal along with the quintessential Bhujia, which was finished as soon as it was put on the thaal. Only after a few helpings of sweets and Bhujia, the next course of the meal was served. The meal itself might be simple but it was made highly appetising by the assortment of pickles made from chillies and mangoes, chutneys which were eaten with chapatis and the dry chapatis our mothers made to make the meals more wholesome using a variety of millets and flours, with labour of love and affection.
Papad was eaten towards the end, eaten either with rice or the vegetable curries or by itself. Even today, when we meet our cousins and family members, we talk fondly of those occasions and those meals shared on plates and conversations.
On our return from Bikaner, we always brought back some of the sweets, papad and Bhujia back home to share with friends, neighbours, and relatives who came to collect their packets of bhujia and papad they had requested to be brought. Everyone relished the sweets.
We also cherished the sweets brought during winters by visiting relatives from Bikaner.
We loved the crisp Ghevar on which sugar syrup was spread at home by my mother, giving it a lovely sweetness instantly, and the Kesar Fini that melted in one’s mouth.
There was another season of sweets that I and my siblings absolutely loved. The Sawan month of the Hindu calendar at the beginning of the rainy season was marked by the sweet aroma of roasting of flour in ghee in the preparation of Sattus and Magadh. The women simply made them from either gram or wheat flour, To prepare Sattu, the flour was stirred and tossed in ghee until it became golden or light brown, and then powdered sugar, doles of ghee, dry fruits and edible gum were mixed to it and the prepared mixture was given the shape of a hemisphere, to be stored in packed containers.
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