Sorry, Kolkata, Bikaner is India's undisputed mithai capital

A few days ago, an article on this website headlined the question "Which city is famous as the sweet capital of India" and went on to crown Kolkata as the king of the sweets-nation. The digital world is replete with such coronations that have made Kolkata synonymous with desserts. This article investigates this blind-faith in Kolkata's sweet-owning superiority.

To walk through the lanes of North Kolkata is to walk through a liquid dream. The air is thick with the scent of boiling milk and the clinking of porcelain. It is romantic, nostalgic, and, if we are being brutally honest, stagnant.

Now, shift your gaze 1,600 kilometres west to Bikaner. Here, the air doesn't smell of delicate steam; it smells of sizzling ghee and roasted gram flour. In every corner, there is a culinary marvel and its creator: Haldiram, Bikaji, Bikanerwala, Chhotu — names that wrote delicious recipes and the world’s gastronomic history.

THE MYTH OF BENGALI MENU

For decades, a myth has been carefully cultivated by the Bengali intelligentsia: that Kolkata is the “Mithai Capital of India.” It’s a lovely sentiment, but it’s factually bankrupt. Kolkata is the Chhena (curdled milk) capital of India. It is a one-recipe menu.

Bikaner, however, is a culinary superpower that engineered a global empire out of sand, sweets, moth and necessity.

THE CHHENA TRAP

The Bengali argument always begins with a history lesson. They don't speak of the Europeans bringing the technique of curdling milk to the East. They speak of Nobin Chandra Das, the Edison of Chhena (author's appellation), who in 1868 figured out how to make a ball of curdled milk spongy rather than crumbly. (Even the Rasgulla’s origins are contested. Odisha has been screaming 'it’s ours' for decades now.)

The invention of the Rasgulla was undoubtedly a stroke of genius. It was the first time an Indian sweet moved away from the dense, heavy textures of the past toward something ethereal. But here is the problem: Bengal never moved on.

Since 1868, the Bengali repertoire has remained trapped in a spongy bubble. Whether it is Sandesh, Rasmalai, or Chamcham, the base ingredient remains the same. The texture remains the same. The shelf life remains the same: dead in a few hours.

To call Kolkata the “Mithai Capital” because its halwais perfected one ingredient is like calling a city the “Car Capital” because they make the world’s best tyres. It’s a component of the industry, not the industry itself.

THE DESERT REALITY: LIFE’S BITTER, MAKE IT SWEET

While Bengal was treating sweets as a post-meal luxury for the Bhadralok (the gentlefolk), the people of Bikaner were facing a different reality. In the Thar Desert, sweets weren't a choice; they were a biological mandate.

In an environment where temperatures swing from 48°C in the shade to near-freezing at night, you cannot survive on “spongy” things. You need caloric density. You need shelf life.

This birthed a culture where sweets offered a much higher nutritional ROI than simple milk solids. The Rajasthanis integrated gur (jaggery) and ghee into their daily diet because they needed fuel to sustain them through gruelling days in barren tracts where food and drink were a mirage.

When a Bikaneri labourer left his home, he carried food that could survive the sun and release calories throughout the day. This necessity forced an explosion of variety that Kolkata could never match.

To sustain life, Bikaner didn't just use milk; it used the entire pantry:

Besan (Gram flour): For the legendary Laddoos and Boondi.

Moong dal: For the rich, life-giving Halwa.

Maida and ghee: For the architectural marvel that is Ghevar.

Rice, sweetened with gur.

Coarse wheat: For Laapsi, Choorma Laddoos, Gulgule (sweet pakoras), and the yummy Gond Pak.

GOND PAK VS RASGULLA: A STUDY IN SUBSTANCE

If you want to see the difference between the two philosophies, look at Gond Pak.

Gond Pak is the “heavyweight champion” of Bikaner. It is a traditional winter sweet made from Desi Ghee and whole wheat flour, featuring nutrient-rich edible gum (Gond), almonds, dry coconut, and whole black pepper. It originated in the heart of the Thar to sustain people through the brutal desert winters.

Compare this with the Rasgulla. The Bengali Rasgulla is a sugar-water balloon. It gives you a spike and a crash. The Gond Pak, however, is functional nutrition. It provides calcium for the bones, healthy fats for the joints, and warmth for the blood. It was a “superfood” centuries before the West invented the term.

And most importantly, it obeys the wine philosophy: while a Rasgulla begins to rot the moment it leaves the syrup, a Gond Pak matures. The ghee settles, the flavours deepen, and it remains perfectly edible for weeks.

THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE SWEET: THE GHEVAR MONOPOLY

If the Sandesh is a sketch, the Ghevar deserves to be in the world’s seven wonders.

Making a Ghevar is an act of engineering. It requires a honeycomb-structured, lacy texture that can only be achieved by pouring cold batter from a specific height into a pool of scorching ghee. It requires years of skill to ensure the batter fries at a precise temperature to hold its shape while being porous enough to soak up syrup without becoming soggy.

This technical sophistication rivals any European pastry. Kolkata has nothing that matches the structural complexity of a Ghevar or the shredded silk texture of Kesar Fini. It is a Rajasthani monopoly because no one else has the patience or the precision to master it.

THE GREAT BHUJIA REVOLUTION

We cannot talk about the mithai capital without talking about the snack capital, because in Bikaner, the twain meet. In 1877, Maharaja Dungar Singh of Bikaner reportedly commissioned the first batch of Bikaneri Bhujia.

This wasn't just a snack; it was a revolution. By using Moth Dal, a hardy legume that grows only in the desert soil of Bikaner and Jodhpur, instead of standard gram flour, the halwais created a savoury product with a flavour profile that could not be replicated anywhere else. It was travel-ready, shelf-stable, and addictive.

While Kolkata was repeating the same three steps — make Rasgulla, make Sandesh, make Mishti Doi — Bikaner was creating an entirely new category of global snacking.

WHO FEEDS THE WORLD?

If a second-generation Indian-American in California or a tech worker in London craves an authentic Indian sweet, where do they go? They don't look for a Kolkata Sweet Shop because, outside a few hyper-local pockets, they don't exist. Instead, they go to the local Indian grocery and pick up a box from Haldiram’s or Bikaji.

Both of these global titans started as small outlets in Bikaner’s Phad Bazaar. Bikaner didn't just preserve its traditions; it scaled them. They pioneered vacuum packaging, zip-pouches, and quality standardisation. They took the fragile Bengali Rasgulla, put it in a tin with a shelf life of six months, and sold it back to the world. (Bikaner has its own variant of the Rasgulla–Khurmani).

Bikaner became a better ambassador for Bengali sweets than Bengal itself.

WHY BIKANER WON

The comparison comes down to a fundamental difference in cultural mindset: preservation vs transformation.

The Bengali sweet makers approached their craft as cultural custodians. Their goal was to serve the neighbourhood and maintain the authenticity of the Rasgulla. It is a noble goal, but it is a small one. It is an approach that builds a legacy, but not an industry.

The Marwari entrepreneurs of Bikaner, however, saw a business opportunity. They had the technical excellence of the royal kitchens but the entrepreneurial hunger of the desert. They didn't just want to feed Bikaner; they wanted to feed the planet.

They moved from Bikaner to Nagpur, to Delhi, to Kolkata itself, and eventually to every continent on Earth. They sought investment, they planned IPOs, and they turned mithai into a multi-billion dollar asset class.

Kolkata had the Ganges. It had fertile soil. It had an abundant supply of milk from the lush plains of Bengal. Kolkata had every natural advantage a “mithai capital” could ask for.

Bikaner had nothing but sand, heat, and lots of hard water.

And yet, Bikaner leveraged its constraints to build an empire, while Kolkata took its advantages for granted and stayed in the clay pot.

Bikaner created multiple product categories: nutritional sweets, architectural sweets, and branded snacks while Kolkata stayed stuck in the chhena trap.

Kolkata might be the city of sweet dreams, but Bikaner is the king of the dessert reality.

One is a romantic memory of a 19th-century invention; the other is the undisputed global powerhouse of the 21st century.

Because what Bikaner cooks today, the world, including Bengal, eats tomorrow.

If that tastes like bitter truth, eat a Rasgulla — but do it quickly, lest it weeps into an inedible mess. Meanwhile, I will, like a die-hard Bikanerwala, take my Gond Pak for a camel safari through the Thar.

Bon apptit.

- Ends