Trays and cutters were purchased to create barfis with the same dimensions. He entered the kitchen and, with help from his grandmother, turned the measures from “fistfuls” and “bowlfuls” to grams and ounces, thus standardising the recipes. Packaging and branding were worked upon by her granddaughter Mallika, and Manav got involved in production. Owing to the pandemic, the whole family were at home and got a chance to focus on the initiative and run it like a proper business. However, since June 2020 – when the Instagram account was launched – the orders came pouring in. Kaur would make these dishes in her home kitchen along with a helper, and buyers would come to the door to collect them.
“In the first two years, we only sold our products to people who were known to us,” says Supriya Suri, Manav’s wife, who handles her grandmother-in-law’s social media accounts. Kaur with her grandson Manav, who helped standardise the recipes.Īnd it is Kaur’s inspirational story that the brand has built and thrived on over the years. More importantly, she received a lot of attention and affection from buyers owing to her age. Five kilograms of besan barfi, badam sherbet and mango pickle sold out within the hour, giving Kaur a chance to earn the first 2,000 Indian rupees ($26) of her life. Within a matter of days, Suri found an opportunity for her mother – who loved preparing Indian sweetmeats and delicacies – to set up a stall at a pop-up market in the city. What’s significant, Kaur says, is that her daughter took her words seriously. “I wanted to get a taste of being independent.” Kaur said while she was happy to see her children and grandchildren settled and busy with their lives, she also felt the need to do something and not sit idle at home. Suri asked her mum if she had any unfulfilled desires. It all started with a candid conversation with Kaur’s youngest daughter, Raveena Suri, a few days before the matriarch’s 90th birthday. I wanted to get a taste of being independent Four years ago, with her family’s backing, it became the signature dish of the brand born in Chandigarh, the joint capital of the Indian states of Punjab and Haryana. Now shipped across India, barfi is Kaur’s family legacy, a sweet she picked out from her father’s repertoire of recipes. "Bachpan yaad aajaye" translates to "it will remind you of childhood". “Manav, it’s now time to add the sugar,” she tells her grandson, who slowly pours some sugar and stirs the mixture to get the besan barfi ready for setting.Ī litany of such instructions, coupled with affectionate banter between the grandmother and grandson, lead to the melt-in-the-mouth signature sweetmeat made day after day in their Chandigarh home and sold under the brand Harbhajan’s – Bachpan Yaad Aajaye (Made with Love). “Ah, now the besan is the right kind of brown we need,” she says, picking up a ladle to stir the semi-soft mixture of chickpea flour and ghee in a heavy-bottomed kadhai (wok) simmering on a low flame. Taking small steps with her walker, Harbhajan Kaur, 95, reaches her kitchen slowly, but is quick to take charge.
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