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The taste of rain

I firmly believe in that old saying that one man’s poison is another man’s meat. The day, when all of Delhi had come to a standstill thanks to a heavy bout of rain, most people were concerned about traffic snarls that had tied the city up into knots. I, however, looked at the rain and uttered a simple word — ghevar. For those of us who have lived in the north, ghevar is a sweet that comes with the rains. There must be a good reason for why it is not sold across the year, like the good rasgullah? I suppose it’s because the sweet, with the coming of the Teej festival and saawan, speaks of the advent of autumn. Food tends to go off in this season, but this is a sweet that can be stored for a long period, for the original and simple variety is made only with a batter of maida, ghee and water, dunked in sugar.

Ghevar is cooked in a special utensil. The light batter is placed in the utensil and put on high heat. It forms a honeycomb like structure, and comes out of the utensil easily. Then you dip it in sugar syrup, let it set and then eat it. These days, of course, ghevars come in all kinds. I went to Kaleva, the fascinating sweet shop in Gole Market, on the day it rained cats, dogs and bigger animals, hoping to buy a kilo of the normal ghevar that I used to eat when I was a kid. Instead, I found a whole array of ghevars — topped with cream or malai, rabri, pistachio, almonds, rose flavour, cashew nuts and so on. There is also a milk ghevar, which uses milk instead of water in making the batter. I chatted about the concept of ghevar with Jawahar Lal, one of the owners of Kaleva, and left after buying a kilo of malai ghevar and rabri ghevar for Rs.180. The pista ghevar is for Rs.480 a kilo, and is sold in small cups. Jawahar tells me that they export the dry ghevar for hungry-for-home-food NRIs. You can also get good ghevar at Chaina Ram’s, near the Fatehpuri mosque. During the rains, there is a queue outside the shop of people who want to eat the sweet, or take some home. It’s not a light sweet, but it’s delicious. I, for one, am always reminded of my childhood when I used to dunk a chunk of ghevar in a bowl of milk, top it with ghee, and then eat it. What can you do about childhood idiosyncrasies?

General opinion, however, has it that the best ghevar in the country is to be found in Bikaner. I don’t argue with that, for Bikaner has been a hub of sweets for decades. This is the birthplace of the sponge rasgullah — though the original sweet is indeed from Bengal. I would suggest that with Teej round the corner, stock your kitchen with a generous box of ghevar. When the rains come pouring in, you can adopt a two-prong method to welcome the showers.

One, don’t venture out, for the traffic, truly, that can be killing. Two, eat your ghevar. Then you can actually enjoy the unadulterated beauty of a heavenly downpour.

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