Forget Mughlai paratha, save Bengal’s Babarsha!

So many worthies have weighed in on the totally irrelevant but quite amusing discussion on the Moglai Porota –a greasy Bengali snack with tendentious Turkic roots—simply because it is supposedly in the crosshairs of Indian cuisine nationalists. Many alternative names have been mooted for it in a remarkable efflorescence of creativity, but another potentially divisive toothsome delight seems to have escaped examination. A speciality of a place called Khirpai in Medinipur, it looks like a smaller, prettier version of a very iconic north Indian sweet. Its history is unclear and most of the stories about its provenance in that corner of Bengal sound about as indeterminate as those that surround the genesis of the Moglai Porota. It has never gained the stature and popularity of that porota but its name is certainly one that could well invite debate these days: Babarsha. Get it? The Bengali Babarsha’s relative obscurity and confinement to west Medinipur is curious, given its similarity to the Rajasthani sweet called Ghevar which has been a popular staple of north Indian sweet outlets in Kolkata too for quite a while. Why wasn’t the Bengali version of that Rajasthani sweet widely accepted? After all, Bengal’s most famous mishti, rosogolla, has captured palates far and wide as a spongy white juicy sphere called rasgulla. Babarsha, however, is languishing in central West Bengal, with rising input costs taking a toll on its makers as local customers are not willing to pay more. How this distinctly Rajasthani sweet ended up being called Babarsha and not, say, Akbarsha(h) or any other name in Bengal is unclear too, due to the usual lack of written records or references. History has clues if not answers, and it needs some leaps of faith to arrive at plausible ones. One theory about the Mughlai porota contends that the chef who ‘invented’ it to please Mughal emperor Jahangir then retired to Bengal and introduced it there. And one implausible provenance of Babarsha avers it was created for Jahangir’s great-grandfather Babar. The first Mughal’s last battle was in Bihar in 1529 when he defeated the Afghan Mahmud Lodi and Bengal’s Sultan Nusrat Shah, but why would a sweet in Bengal be named after him? Another story has it that the Babarsha was created to felicitate a Briton named ‘Edward Babarash’, who fended off Maratha plunderers. But Babarash does not sound British. A deep dive into regional history, though, led me to a man named Edward Barber, the British ‘Resident’ of ‘Midnapore’ when Bengal not only faced Maratha raids but also skirmishes between British and French trading entities over a collection of ‘dues’ from local people. Could beleaguered Bengalis have been so grateful to Barber for fending off the Marathas (maybe the French too?) that they created a sweet named, say ‘Barber-Sir’ aka Babar-sha? Could very well be! Particularly since another Bengali mishti distinctly resembles a very popular north Indian sweet but bears a British(-ish) name: Ledikeni. It is a ‘desification’ of the title of the wife of Charles Canning, India’s last Governor-General and first Viceroy. She was Charlotte, her title, Lady Canning, and the ‘Ledikeni’ named after her is the gulab jamun-like sibling if not twin of the older—and still existing—spherical Bengali sweet named Pantua. It is said to have been “created” by the founder of the now-legendary eponymous Calcutta sweet shop Bhim Chandra Nag for the British peeress almost a century after Midnapore’s Barber-sir supposedly inspired the creation of the filigreed Babarsha. The reason for the persistence of the ‘brave Brit’ Babarsha story isn’t hard to understand either, in light of the prevailing narrative of our times. The subliminal message about ‘Hindoo’ marauders like the Marathas, and swashbuckling British saviours of Bengalis who lived under the benevolent rule of Nawab Alivardi Khan suited several purposes, colonial and post-colonial. Tagging a sweetmeat to it has certainly ensured longevity to the story! Except, of course, for the fact that the sweet itself was not invented in Bengal–it is from Rajasthan. In fact, Ghevar is widely made and savoured in the areas immediately adjoining Rajasthan even today. There is every reason to assume that the traders and soldiers who journeyed from the western desert to the eastern delta centuries ago carried along the flavours of home including sweet ones. As many of them never went back, Ghevar stayed too. Indeed, Ghevar may have gained a special cachet during the three stints of Akbar’s favourite Rajput general, the Kachhwaha Raja Man Singh as the all-powerful Subahdar of the Bengal province. Even today, the old Kachhwaha capital, Jaipur is Ground Zero for Ghevar and its long shelf-life would have lent itself to being carried by itinerant traders, not to mention the usual entourage of the Raja Man Singh and his Mughal army’s cooks. Another Indian sweet whose name contains ‘sha’ is Balushahi, which not only sounds deliciously similar but uses the same basic ingredients as the Babarsha: flour, ghee and sugar syrup. Balushahi is said to originate in Runni Saidpur in Bihar’s Sitamarhi district Bihar, nearly 600km from Babarsha’s hometown of Khirpai in Bengal. Bihar even intends to apply for Geographical Indication (GI) for it though there are variants all over India. Unfortunately, there is no story—implausible or not—about how it came to acquire a ‘shahi’ name. However, its resemblance to sweets from west Asia is undeniable, including its traditional garnish of chopped pistachios and almonds. The busy spice and silk routes, not to mention the establishment of Turkic and Afghan dynasties with a deep admiration of all things Persian could indeed have had a role in the evolution of Balu-shahi. But the same foreign tag cannot be given to Babarsha—or Ghevar. There is nary a sweet to the west of the Indian subcontinent that can be confidently called their firang ancestor. In fact, given its delicacy, size and ‘freehand’ formation (without a mould) the one made in Bengal appears to be a more evolved version of the Rajasthani original, whose discs are much thicker. Babarshas look like fine lace doilies or thin-petalled white flowers. The skill of the makers of Babarshas is evident. The ghee has to be whipped by hand into a very light creamy emulsion with the help of ice-cubes, and then flour gradually added until it becomes a paste. It is thinned out with water (or in some cases milk) until it reaches the right pouring consistency. A mix of ghee and oil is heated in a kadhai and the batter is poured in a steady stream of droplets that sizzle and harden into that classic lace. The lacy, crunchy, 5-inch freeform disc is then traditionally just dipped in thin sugar syrup or served with honey poured over it, for a mere Rs 25 or so each, these days. But in many cases, Babarshas are also served with a layer of sweet, thickened milk (rabri) and garnished with pistachios and almonds, Ghevar-style. The one without a milky garnish is likely to be a version that travelled from the desert, given the heat of the Bengal delta. Ghevar has found its way into the menus of trendy restaurants in India’s metro cities—Chef Pratik Sadhu had a savoury version in his menu when helming Masque in Mumbai, for instance—but not so the prettier Babarsha. As it is almost unknown outside Medinipur that is not surprising. Unfortunately, this sustained obscurity has led to Babarsha-makers using vanaspati (hydrogenated fat) instead of ghee to keep prices low for their market. The impact on flavour and quality needs no elaboration. Rather than wasting time and energy creating witticisms around the fate of the robust Moglai Porota, food lovers should rally to rescue the delicate Bengali Babarsha—probably Barber-sir— from oblivion. The author is a freelance writer. Views expressed are personal. Read all the  Latest News,  Trending News,  Cricket News,  Bollywood News, India News and  Entertainment News here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.