Panshikar Mithai Kendra

Down in Girgaon, things move a bit differently. We’ve been at Panshikar Mithai Kendra for longer than I can remember. The shop is small, and during the festive season, it gets so cramped you can barely turn around. I wake up early, around four, to start on the milk. It takes hours to get that thick consistency you need for the good stuff. The floor is always a bit sticky no matter how many times we mop it. That’s the sugar for you. We use the same heavy brass pots my grandfather used. They’re dented and black on the bottom, but they work better than anything new you can buy today. People walk in from the street, usually in a hurry, but they always stop to smell the saffron. We don’t have a fancy website or a marketing person. Most of our neighbors just know us by name. Sometimes the electricity goes out and we have to finish the packing by candlelight. It’s quiet in the afternoons when the sun is hitting the storefront hard. We sit on the wooden benches and wait for the evening rush. It’s just sweets and hard work. Nothing more to it. We don’t use machines for the shaping; we do it all by hand, so sometimes the pieces aren’t perfectly round. It tastes the same though. That is what really matters to us at the end of the day.