SANKARA IYER - THE ESOTERIC SWEET MAKER

Jhangiri (its crudest form is Jalabi in the north) is the King of sweets in South. Though Halwa poses a tough challenge, as it has different varieties and tolerant limits, Jhangiri reigns supreme. Daughters-in-law, young mothers and even mothers –in-law in the making look at it with awe. Only well matured mothers-in-law and well experienced cooks alone have the temerity to go a little beyond tasting it. Its preparation needs a reading of Tom Peters treatise on Excellence. In their attempts to prepare Jhangiri, lesser mortals were often left to lament.

Jhangiri enjoys a social status in the south. For the man who is adept at preparing Jhangiri, Mysore Pak or Laddu is too primitive, like a club player to a World Cup wonder. As Jhangiri is generally served on arrival of the bridegroom’s party at the marriage hall on the eve of the marriage in Tamilian marriages, its quality can make or mar a marriage. What more, mere absence of Jhangiri in a marriage, mellows down the merriment. If the Jhangiri is a little pliable, the groom’s granny in her nineties would start grumbling. If it is too crisp, his young aunt would resort to her taunts. If it is too sweet, the diabetic brigade ( I am an humble soldier in this brigade) would start its diatribe and if the level of sugar is low, it would be relegated to the last serve – to the servants, the uninitiated, the uninvited and those who have lost the power of the palate.

Late Shri V.K.Krishna Menon once said that ‘a genius is one who simplifies complex issues and a mediocre man complicates simple ones.’ If preparing a high quality Jhangiri is a complex process, Sankara Iyer was certainly a genius, in that he excelled in simplifying the preparation of Jhangiri, without compromising on quality. ‘An acceptable Jhangiri should not be too crispy like Chakkili nor too pliable like Halwa; neither too reddish nor too yellowish; should have been well soaked in frying media, and yet should not ooze with them; must have absorbed enough jeera mix; sweet enough to be classified as such with a shelf life of about a week to ten days’- these are Sankara Iyer’s prescriptions for perfection in the preparation of Jhangiri.

Sankara Iyer’s wife would constantly grind soaked ulud dal in the traditional stone grinder and ensure uninterrupted supply of the dough when Sankara Iyer would concentrate on the other processes. In Sankara Iyer’s opinion, a good quality oil/vanaspati alone provides the platform for frying Jhangiri as ghee would add rubberish elasticity and reduce shelf life. A very onerous task is soaking in the Jeerah mix; in fact this would decide as to whether the label Jhangiri is rightly fitting or not. Many an experienced hands cannot cross this hurdle and go beyond. A failed Jhangiri has no salvage value nor can it serve as a raw material for another sweet and hence one has to be extra careful in preparing Jhangiri.

The secret of Sankara Iyer’s success was that he was obsessed with quality whether for home consumption or otherwise. His mixing the ingredients was immaculate. He was perfect, like a Tendulkar stroke ( of yester years) in timing. You allow it to fry a little longer, Jhangiri can jeopardise your career in cooking. If Jeerah mix is juxtaposed, a jail term would be a milder punishment. If the grinding of ulud dal is not constant, one can forget Jhangiri in the same instant.

To have prepared Jhangiri for Diwali is certainly a milestone for any married woman. But it needs rigors of training and artistic skill to come out successful. Sankara Iyer spent years of training in hotels of every description and interacted with experts of every degree and experimented with combinations of every kind. But even Sankara Iyer’s children could become only the connoisseurs of culinary art and impassioned critics. They failed to become a creative artist like their genius father.

One may sound a little chaunistic, if one calls the Jalebi of the north, as the poor country cousin of the Jhangiri. Jalebi is gaudi in colour, garish in appearance and in comparison to Jhangiri, unrefined in taste. It is too crispy and cannot even play second fiddle to Jhangiri. Whereas pride of place is given to Jhangiri in the south, Jhalebi is a commoner, as one can smell Jalebi, when being fried in street corners and everybody has access to it even when being dressed up. Jhangiri, like a traditional housewife, retains her grace, never crosses the threshold and street corner is certainly a taboo.

If the maker of an excellent Jhangiri is a creative genius, an impassioned critic is no less artistic. It requires almost all the artistic skills of a Sankara Iyer to rate the quality of a Jhangiri and rank it appropriately, or relegate it to the piles of glorified Jalebis.

And finally, Jhangiri is majestic, and enjoys a pride of place and social grace. Men like Sankara Iyer has taken it to dizzy heights – an esoteric sweet maker indeed.