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With love from Delhi
THEY ARE neither mithaiwallahs nor have anything to do with traditional Indian sweets. Even then, they work over time during the festive season of Diwali so that prestigious sweet shops of Delhilike the Nathus, Ghantewala and Heera Lal prepare the mouth-watering burfi, ladodo and Karachi ka halwa well in time.
Having nicely wrapped, they are to be sent to Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore for Non Resident Indians to celebrate Diwali. NRIs, even living away from the country of their birth or forefathers, do miss mithai at the time of festivals, specially Diwali. And so rises the need for it to export from Delhi.
Financial expert Raj Dhawan has been exporting sweets to South East Asian countries for the last couple of years. Recalls Raj as to how he started this business, "I was sitting in one of the coffee shops of downtown Hong Kong a few years ago. As I was sipping my coffee, I overheard an acrimonious conversation between the Sikh owner of that Coffee shop and somebody else. The Sikh gentleman was angry that since he didn't receive the consignment in time, he incurred huge losses. He was really furious. Before leaving the place, I told him that I could handle such assignments with utmost care."
"Meanwhile, Sardarji cooled down and told me to supply the mithai for Holi. I did that and got full marks from Sardarji. Since then, I have been supplying mithai there and to other countries as well." He says he supplies burfi, ladoo, patisa and other such items. The shelf life of all these sweets is longer than those having `chasni' in it.
Thriving business
According to Dinesh Gupta, who too exports mithai, says these sweets take five to seven hours from sweet shops to reach their buyer in another country. They tie-up with sweet shops in city tonicely pack them in boxes well in time so that they can be sent by air. Dinesh is the owner of a leading advertising agency.
According to one rough estimate by a market observer, around 10 people, who otherwise have nothing to do with mithai business, export it during festival season.
A Nathu's Sweets manager says though lot of people purchase large quantity of sweets from them. They are not directly involved in the process of export. Some people from Mumbai, Kolkata and Varanasi too reportedly export Indian mithai. Though nobody divulges the economics of this business, it goes without saying, he adds, that those who are into this business,make good amount of money. According to Raj, there is hardly any export of mithai to countries like America, Britain and The Gulf as number of sweet shops have come up there.
VIVEK SHUKLA
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