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When Harshit Agrawal was all of 10 years outdated, his favorite pastime was sitting at his grandfather’s mithai store off Mumbai’s Elphinstone Highway. Chubby legs swinging within the air — as they couldn’t but attain the bottom — pretending to rely money and secretly stealing a mithai or two from the glass instances make Harshit’s fondest recollections.
When his father took over the store following his grandfather’s sickness, Harshit recounts how ‘Janta Dairy’ assumed the position of the third youngster of the household, rising alongside the boys. “He [my father] cherished it dearly,” he smiles.
It was this ardent love for the mithai enterprise that compelled Harshit and his youthful brother Tanay to do all the things of their energy to maintain the legacy alive when it was threatened amidst the pandemic. The brother duo aren’t halwais — Harshit is a movie producer and Tanay a literature graduate — however that didn’t cease them from testing new floor with their cloud kitchen Pistabarfi that they launched on the peak of the pandemic.
Was the foray into the mithai scene difficult? “Not should you grew up in my household the place it’s in our DNA,” laughs Harshit.
The journey from being harmless youngsters enjoying round in Janta Dairy to teaming as much as save the household enterprise is a memorable one for the brothers. They share their story with The Higher India.
A candy trip
What’s your favorite mithai? For Harshit it’s kalakand.
He recounts Tanay’s and his childhood being bundled in a repertoire of flavours of various sweets and savouries. The locals of Mumbai, significantly Elphinstone Highway, distinguished Janta Dairy by two issues — an aroma of sweets wafting out and a smiling man who was a continuing fixture on the counter.
Since 1968, Harshit’s father has had a front-row seat to the evolution of Elphinstone Highway and Mumbai alike. And the store has seen a trajectory of its personal — from a dairy that bought the world’s very best quality milk, curd, paneer, and lassi to a store that added mithais and samosas to its record of things.
The boys cherished spending all their free time right here.
Although Harshit by no means educated as a halwai, he recounts anecdotes that had been silently shaping this ability in him. Hours spent sampling the mithais — mawa pedhas, balusaahi (a crispy candy made with flour and butter), kaju katli, motichoor laddoo, kalakand (a candy cheese confection), Bombay halwa, Mahim halwa, dry mysore pak (which in comparison with its moist counterpart has a biscuit texture), dink laddoo (made utilizing resin, nuts and ghee) and methi laddoo — turned Harshit right into a connoisseur of sweets at an early age.
He recollects how he’d typically level out to his father when a batch of sweets didn’t “style fairly proper”. He provides, “My father would instantly discard the batch. I’ve by no means seen him attempt to salvage a batch of mithai by mixing the outdated batch with the brand new — a typical act amongst most mithai makers. As an alternative, he’d bear the losses however guarantee his prospects had been getting the most effective.”
And thus grew the celebrity of Janta Dairy.
The brothers hardly bear in mind seeing their father at house. Harshit goes on, “You see, my father has gone to the store each single day, ever since he took over in Class 12. He has by no means missed work. It’s house, store, and again house for dinner. Even on Sundays, the routine continues.”
Till someday, the routine stopped. The COVID pandemic had prolonged its attain to Mumbai.
Reimagining old-school classics
It was disheartening for the boys to look at their father, who cherished the dairy, now sit at house. Enterprise was at an all-time low. And someplace, Harshit felt their household legacy was going to falter except they stepped in.
Pistabarfi was born out of a quest to save lots of a heirloom enterprise. Although testing new waters, the brothers say there was completely no friction. Tanay introduced his experience in coping with the logistics, whereas Harshit was accountable for the inventive side of the enterprise.
The thought was for the household to proceed promoting mithai by means of a cloud kitchen method till Janta Dairy was able to reopen. The primary two years weren’t a lot about gross sales however constructing a model voice, says Tanay.
Two issues would set Pistabarfi aside, the brothers determined. The packaging and the standard of substances.
Elaborating on the primary, Harshit says, “The mithai scene in India is a really unorganised market. I’m speaking in regards to the early 2000s when there wasn’t lots of emphasis on packaging. Value-cutting was rampant. At present, the scene has barely improved. In case you see the standard mithai packing containers they normally function designs like a cow, milk, and so on. The imagery shouldn’t be thrilling.”
He provides, “Even manufacturers that concentrate on good packaging don’t inform a narrative by means of it. There’s no voice.”
The second ache level was that of high quality.
“It’s powerful for the mithais in Mumbai to rival that in different cities. It is because, for high quality mithai, high quality uncooked supplies are wanted. These are costly. If employed, this could in flip enhance the price of the mithai. So, most mithai makers resort to substances that may assist them obtain a steadiness between cost-effectiveness and style,” he shares.
Pistabarfi is constructed on addressing these factors. The brothers emphasise that the thought behind the enterprise has at all times been to stay to their conventional roots and play to their strengths.
Taking the legacy ahead
Whereas designing the model identification, Harshit was clear that high quality wanted to be premium, which can be why Pistabarfi merchandise retail at a better fee than most mithais.
The model retails three merchandise — pistabarfi constructed from crushed Peshawari pistachios, kaju katli (made with premium cashew nuts and 400 g of sugar in distinction to the 600 g variants available in the market) and gur laddoo made with jowar, bajra, nachni, wheat, rice, jaggery and ghee.
The rationale behind this restricted choice, says Tanay, is high quality. “We’re very certain of the three mithais we now have. It takes lots of time to do R&D and to crack the right style. Additionally, a few of these recipes have been carried down from era to era and that makes it particular. We want to embrace Mysore pak subsequent, trials for which have been underway for fairly a while now.”
And their packaging parallels the mithais with regards to attract.
Elaborating on how he got here throughout this concept of utilizing Gond artwork on the mithai packing containers, Harshit says, “I stumbled upon this type of artwork whereas helping director Devashish Makhija on his brief movie again in 2015. He gifted me the e book ‘The Evening Lifetime of Bushes’ which featured Gond artwork in it. I used to be so taken up by this picture and its conventional linkages that when arising with the packaging for Pistabarfi, I obtained the picture licensed from Tara Books, they usually had been more than pleased to oblige.”
So, is Pistabarfi the brand new Janta Dairy?
“Completely not,” says Harshit. He’s agency that the previous was created as an ode to the latter’s legacy with a barely totally different method. “The tip shopper could be very totally different for each locations. Janta Dairy targets the locals who’ve been coming to the store since my grandfather’s time. It’s a really repeat clientele. However, Pistabarfi has a distinct segment viewers.”
At present, Pistabarfi delivers throughout India and is nicely on its strategy to arising with value-added snacking merchandise that break the parable of mithais solely being a festive cause. As an illustration, take the kaju katli mithai bar, a chocolate bar-shaped product that’s truly kaju katli!
“One can preserve it of their pocket and snack on it after they wish to. It isn’t essentially what I might name ‘fusion’. It’s extra like we’re making merchandise which can be accessible,” he shares.
However even whereas the brothers have damaged into the mithai section with their distinctive cloud kitchen method, Harshit minces no phrases when he says it’s silly to imagine one may deliver an entire shift.
“We’re so accustomed to simply strolling down the highway and getting into a mithai store, asking to style the assorted sweets as we take our decide. It’s an emotion. That’s what Janta Dairy will at all times give its prospects. I’m not going to alter that,” he says.
Talking about watching his sons step in, Narottam (56) says, “I’ve been on the store since I used to be in Class 12. That’s the one actuality I do know and lived for all these years. My concept was to tug by means of for so long as I may as a result of it’s part of my identification and shedding the store would imply shedding part of myself. My sons prevented that from occurring.”
“What they’ve carried out is sort of totally different from what I may have ever imagined. It’s distinctive and I really feel proud as a father,” he remarks.
Edited by Pranita Bhat
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