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The typical sweet that caps a visit to Puri

Satyasundar Barik

It is one of the offerings before Lord Jagannath

Photo: Lingaraj Panda

Getting ready: A sweet shop stacks khaja for the Ratha Yatra at Puri.

PURI: This city is famous for its 12th century Jagannath temple, its annual car festival, the delicious Mahaprasad of the Ananda Bazaar and its sandy beaches. But a sense of accomplishment eludes if a tourist returns from Puri without khaja, a typical sweet.

Though nobody knows its origin, khaja got its recognition for being one of the offerings before Lord Jagannath, claimed Sarat Kumar Pratihari, a vendor.

The Rath Yatra is boom time for about 200 vendors who have specialised in making khaja just a few yards away from the main temple. Vendors are now ecstatic about the prospects of brisk business during the festival that begins on Monday.

Pratihari was not forthcoming in disclosing the volume of his daily khaja business.

But locals revealed a vendor having a shop as small as 60 sq ft area earned between Rs 15,000 and Rs 20,000 daily. During Rath Yatra, it shoots up to even Rs 50,000 per day.

"We have already warned our workers not to be absent during Rath Yatra. This is virtually harvesting time for us," he said. Since tourists and devotees come from each and every corner of the country for darshan of Lord Jagannath, the taste of khaja has become famous everywhere just like the Jagannath cult, Amiya Kumar Panda, a local said. "Now khaja is also available even in New Delhi. But nowhere the taste of khaja of Puri could be reproduced," he said.

Khaja is made of maida, sugar, ghee and milk. Packaging of the sweet is also done in ’Puri style’. The flavour of the sweet gets real as vendors fill khaja in palm-leaf packets. Though it is altogether a different matter that palm-leaf packets are now short in supply, people coming from other states prefer to take back the memory of Puri sweet through these traditional packets.

Though food inspectors become ‘serious’ about the quality of khaja during Rath Yatra, vendors never get bogged down under administrative control.

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