Mastana Sweets

I open the shutters at Mastana Sweets every morning before the sun gets too high over Civil Line. The air on Bindraban Road is usually quiet then, except for a few early scooters passing by. Inside, the big metal pots are waiting for me. We start with the milk, boiling it down for hours until it is just right for the barfi. It gets very hot in the back kitchen, especially during the summer months, but that is just how the work goes. People come in looking for something to take to a friend’s house or just a quick snack while they are out running errands. We keep the glass cases clean so you can see what was made fresh today. Sometimes we run out of the popular items by the afternoon, and then we just start prepping everything for the next day. The floor gets a bit sticky by noon despite our scrubbing, but that happens in a sweet shop. It is a simple routine here. We don’t have fancy decorations or anything. Just the sweets and the cardboard boxes stacked up in the corner. Sometimes the kids from the neighborhood stop by after school and the shop gets loud for a bit. My hands are usually covered in flour or sugar by the time I close up. Bindraban Road has changed a lot over the years, with more shops popping up, but we are still here doing the same thing. We don’t think much about it, we just make the batches and hope they turn out good.