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Jolbhora Sandesh: From poet Rabindranath Tagore to current Sourav Ganguly or Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, everyone knows this sweet shop by the same name.
Hooghly: A sweet made for 200 years to cheat the son-in-law. At present, the taste of that sweet is in the mouth of every Bengali. From universal poet Rabindranath Tagore to current Sourav Ganguly or Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, everyone knows this sweet shop by the same name. Don’t know why the maker of ‘Talshans or Jalbhara Sandesh’ sold in the shop is the then owner of this shop. The name of the shop is ‘Surya Modak’ from the name of the owner.
This sweet shop has been doing tradition for almost 200 years on GT Road in Barasat area of Chandannagar, Hooghly. The story of Surya Modak’s journey is also quite interesting. In 1883, Abdar, the landlady of Telini Para, comes to make a new kind of sweet that she can use to trick her new husband. But how is it possible!
That responsibility fell on Surya Modak and his son Siddheshwar Modak. After a lot of thinking, father and son invented a new sandesh which is shaped like a palm tree and filled it with fragrant rose water and dulse juice and made a new sweet called Jlavhara sandesh. The message was sent to the landlord’s house. When the son-in-law took a bite of that sandesh in the zamindar’s banquet house, the juice spilled out and soaked the boy’s panjabi.
Today, the old tradition and the new one have been caught through this message. Now it’s not just the rose extract that is being made with the juice of the rose in water filled sand. Sandesh is prepared with ripe mango, raw mango or strawberry. Along with it, there is a water bottle of winter molasses. Apart from this, different types of water are prepared in different festivals. Jumbo Jalbhara Sandesh is prepared on special occasions. After 3 generations, the present owner of the shop is now Shaibal Kumar Modak.
Shaibal wants to hand over all business responsibilities to his new generation daughter Bhagyashree Modak. Surya Modak, a traditional sweet shop in Chandannagar, Hooghly, has been moving forward with the fusion of sweets tradition and modernity for three generations.
Rahi Halder
Kolkata, West Bengal
Jolbhora Sandesh Bangla News || The landlord’s son-in-law was made to cheat! Even today Bengali’s very favorite ‘Ae’ Sandesh, do you know the name?
