Annapurna Bhandar: 96-year-old sweet shop in Chandni Chowk to close on a bitter note

The 1929-founded sweet shop has been involved in a legal battle between the owner and the Mukherjee family, which operated the shop.

New Delhi: For the last many years, 59-year-old Meeta Prasad made Annapurna Bhandar her first stop for sweets for every occasion, from Durga Puja to birthdays. However, the 96-year-old shop closes on December 31 after a three-year legal battle, ending a tradition for Prasad and many others who flocked to the shop to quench their sugar cravings or celebrate an occasion.

The shop was founded in 1929 (Vipin Kumar/ HT)

Located just a few steps from Chandni Chowk’s Gurudwara Sis Ganj Sahib, the 1929-founded sweet shop has been involved in a legal battle between the owner and the Mukherjee family, which operated the shop.

81-year-old Mihir Mukherjee, who had been running the shop for the past 60 years, said: “My grandfather MM Mukherjee worked for British railways before Independence. However, due to leg injury, which resulted in one of his legs getting amputated, he had to take an early retirement. Around the same time, in 1911, the capital of British India was shifted to Delhi from Kolkata (then Calcutta). All the officers were also migrating and that’s when my grandfather thought that opening a sweet shop in Delhi would be a great business opportunity.”

Mukherjee claimed that the shop owner has other plans for the place, and the only reason he would allow Mukherjee to continue running the shop is if he paid a monthly rent of ₹1-1.5 lakh. “The next generation of my family is not very keen on continuing the business as most of them are into the service sector,” Mukherjee added.

Mukherjee’s cousins run a sweet shop under the same name — Annapurna Bhandar — in a different area in the city, but the one in Chandni Chowk is where it all started. The shop has been visited by several dignitaries, including former Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajeev Gandhi, and former chief minister of West Bengal Jyoti Basu.

Recalling the legacy, Mukherjee said one of the most happening days for him was when India had won the Cricket World Cup in 1983.

“The then PM Indira Gandhi had asked us to prepare sweets for Team India, which had just come back to India from winning the world cup. A reception was organised at the Hyderabad House, India Gate. It was an honour for us to prepare sweets for Kapil Dev and other team members. We sent a number of sweets, including pink rasgulla, chumchum, anand bhog and varieties of sandesh,” said Mukherjee.

He added that he was trying to find another shop to run in the same locality as the place where he prepares the sweets is nearby.

Around 500 metres from Annapurna Bhandar, and in a narrow lane behind the Lajpat Rai market, is Mukherjee’s two-storey workshop where sweets are prepared everyday. Apart from himself and the person looking after the accounts, he has 12 people, six from West Bengal and the remaining from Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, who work at the shop.

For 61-year-old Naba Kumar Pal, who migrated from West Bengal’s in 1985 and works for Mukherjee, the usual drill could end soon.

“I usually wake up at 4 and start making samosas. Around 7:30, the milkman comes and that’s when the preparation to make sweets starts in full swing till three in the afternoon. The shelf life of Bengali sweets is 24 to 30 hours, so we prefer making only to meet a day’s demand,” said 61-year-old Pal.

Another cook, 74-year-old Gosain Singh said that when he joined Mukherjee’s shop in 1974, he knew nothing about the process of making Bengali sweets.

“I started out with making rasgulla then learnt how to make sugar syrup. In nearly fifty years, I can now prepare around 25 different Bengali sweets,” said Singh, who hails from Uttarakhand’s Nainital.

Sitting on a thin jute mat on the ground floor of the two-story sweets workshop, Gosain said if Mukherjee fails to find an alternative, he will return to his village.