Laddoos for all occasions
Harikrishna Mahanti

The query as to which is the most popular sweet for a festival is likely to provoke verbal riots. The 150-year-old rossogulla from Bengal, the 100-year-old sweet mysorepak from the South, chikki from Maharashtra and the multi-type barfis of Delhi are bound to stake their claims. But if you have to go by its classic history, popular acceptance for weddings and success in exams, laddoo is the most celebrated of the mithais.

How many Hindi films have you seen where Nirupa Roy has been shown lovingly distributing laddoos on happy occasions — weddings, births and festivals. If a mother goes for a pregnancy check and the doctor tells her it is a laddoo, that means she is carrying a son. If the mother is informed she will be blessed with a baby girl, then barfi will be distributed. When it comes to your success in exams or getting a job, you have to make sure that you give people laddoos. There is even a Hindi phrase involving laddoos to denote happiness — mere dil mein laddoo phoot rahein hain.

Our festivals are all laddoo-related. Sankranti, for instance, is celebrated in the South with laddoos.

During Lohri, another festival heralding spring, people enjoy til ke laddoo. Even health-wise, there is a tradition of offering women who have just delivered babies gond ke laddoo. Then there is the pinni laddoo cooked with urad dal, which for long years was taken mostly by men in north India, for it was thought to be an aphrodisiac. The base materials could consist of roasted sesame seeds, rava or fried globules (boondi) of the batter of various pulses, especially besan.

Laddoos, known by their Sanskrit name of laddukam, are one of the few sweets that are mentioned in Indian epics like Mahabharata and Ramayana and in the medical treatise Susruta Samhita. In its food aspects, laddoo is said to represent sattva — the most accepted mode of human behaviour, if you want to follow the path of moderation.
Varieties of laddoos are made all over India from Ganesh Chaturthi till Divali. In fact you can say that there are as many varieties of laddoo as there are Indian languages and dialects. This sweet can be made with different ingredients — Maharashtrians make it with rice flour, jaggery and grated coconut with cardamom seeds and dried fruits as seasoning, while the Gujaratis make churma laddoos of wheat flour. In the South, too, it is made with rice flour and a filling of coconut and jaggery.

Tirupati laddoo is a type of boondi laddoo; motichur laddoo is a sweet delicacy of Bihar; besan laddoo is common in many parts of India. Then comes bandaru laddoo of Andhra Pradesh, kunja laddoo of Tamil Nadu, while til laddoo is popular in West Bengal. They are usually decorated with raisins, almonds, pistachio, cardamom, edible silver leaf and sometimes saffron.

Of course the most famous of these sweets are the famous Tirupati laddoos. Nearly100,000 are sold to devotees every day. Though old-timers say the laddoos no longer taste like they did years ago, the Tirupati temple authorities maintain that though some ingredients have been left out and the quantity of some reduced to keep up with the rising costs, the quality and the size (weight 175 gm) have always been maintained. — MF

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