The sweet comeback tale of Chandni Chowk’s 234-year old Ghantewala
Ghantewala, the beloved 234-year old sweet shop is back in business. Check out the journey, from Mughal era to the modern time.
Ghantewala, Chandni Chowk’s 234-year-old sweet shop, is back in business with its famed sweets and snacks. A sepia menu in English hangs on the walls of Ghantewala, a 234-year sweet shop that sits smugly in a crowded byline of Chandni Chowk, Delhi. With tiny squiggles in the middle, the black and white menu lists 30 items headlined with the proclamation: “All saltish edibles and sweets are prepared with Pure Desi Ghee (AG Mark) fresh and most superior quality of materials by our most experienced men under our strict supervision”.

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Humble beginnings
This was Ghantewala’s menu in 1954. To begin with, the sweet shop had no menu. Just a diligent, entrepreneurial man named Lala Sukh Lal Jain from Nagaur (Rajasthan) who had arrived in Delhi to earn a living. Jain certainly knew the art of making sweets, specially Mishri mawa (similar to kalakand). Jain began by selling sweets loaded on big brass thali and later graduated to a pushcart.
The year was 1790. Shah Alam II was the nominal Mughal Emperor, the British East India Company had already made inroads and Lutyens Delhi was still a barren stretch. Lala Sukh Lal Jain hadn’t yet christened his enterprise but with time, sweet lovers started calling it Ghantewala.
There are as many stories around the christening of Ghantewala as there are about the crowd that gathered every morning for the pure-ghee sweets. Literally, 'the one with the bell’, legend has it that Emperor's Shah Alam’s favourite elephant would stop outside Ghantewala and shake its head, ringing the bell around its neck, refusing to move until it was fed sweets. Some say, the shop got its name because the sweets were so delightful that they were even enjoyed by the ghantawala (bell-ringer) at the Red Fort, a regular customer.
Becoming the household name for sweets
Sushant Jain, the 7th-generation owner of Ghantewala, rings another bell to the tale. “In olden times, there was a school behind the shop where bells rang at regular intervals. Gradually, people started referring to the shop as ‘one that is in the ghantewali gali {lane where the bell rings}’ and the name stuck,” says Jain, who along with his son Aryan and daughter Pari, are taking Sukh Lal Jain’s legacy forward.
The fame of Ghantewala’s sweets, specially its Sohan Halwa, Karachi Halwa, Habshi Halwa, and Dal Moth, spread far bringing British colonial masters and later political dignitaries to the steps of their nondescript shop that had ‘Ghantewala Oldest Shop’ emblazoned on the rectangular signboard. So popular was the sweet shop that even the 1912 British Gazetteer mentioned it, praising its ‘pre-eminent position in Delhi's gastronomic art'.
Not just that, their sweets were sent to the Indian soldiers working abroad as reported in a Hindi daily dated January 17, 1958, along with a photograph of several large cartons with Ghantewala written in large font. “On the occasion of Republic Day, a packet of sweets, savoury edibles, and dry fruits will be given to Indian soldiers working in foreign countries… A packet weighing 10 tonnes has been handed over to Air India International for delivery to Indian soldiers in Gaza. Sweet packets have also been sent to Indian soldiers working on the Indo-China border through Indian Airlines Corporation” (loosely translated from the report published in Hindi).

Before that, in 1954, Indira Gandhi had sent boxes of Ghantewala sweets to Indian soldiers based in Korea. The same year, moviegoers saw Ghantewala on the silver screen in BR Chopra’s hugely popular film Chandni Chowk with Meena Kumari in the lead role. In the film, Ghantewala was recreated on the sets in Bombay with a signboard that read: “Ghantewala, The Famous And Royal Confectioners. By Appointment to The Great Moghal Emperors of India”.

Sushant Jain remembers the visit of painter MF Hussain to Ghantewala and his love for Sohan Halwa, as well as days when Ghantewala employees would head to the residence of the then Prime Minister Mr Rajiv Gandhi to make sweets and snacks during festivals.

The sweet tale of Ghantewala turned sour when the shop had to shut down in July 2015 due to familial disputes, falling sales and legal standoff with the Delhi Pollution Control Board. After a decade-long hiatus, the shop reopened in August this year much to the delight of old-timers. The shop still stands in a crowded bylane of Chandni Chowk though shrunk in size due to the partition of the property but Sushant and Aryan are raring to revive the glory of the sweet shop that once held ‘pre-eminent position in Delhi's gastronomic art (British Gazetteer, 1912).
It has been 234 years since Lala Sukh Lal Jain first made the Mishri Mawa and now as his 8th generation descendant Aryan Jain picks up the baton he promises “to preserve a piece of heritage and build a future that resonates with both tradition and modernity”.
