Delhiwale: The return of Morena wale

This is the land of Pan Singh Tomar. The dacoit was the hero of an acclaimed movie in which he was immortalised by award-winning actor Irrfan Khan. As any Chambal Valley aficionado will tell you, Pan Singh was born in Morena. Indeed, the Madhya Pradesh district, due to its location in the legendary valley, is commonly identified for its complicated past with dacoits. (The lawless brigands themselves fancied themselves as baghi, the rebel.)
Morena is also home to historic temples. However, the gourmands among us must not be derided for celebrating Morena purely for its enduring links to a robust dessert.
Said to inject instant life-giving warmth into the body, the crispy gajak annually returns to the capital with the onset of winter. Just days before Diwali, very many gajak shops and stalls miraculously pop up in the neighbourhood bazars. Almost all of these makeshift establishments assert a direct connect to Morena.
A regular gajak stall tends to offer only the gajak’s classic edition in which the gur (jaggery) is married with til (seasame seed). Some of these stalls make truly delicious gajaks—such as the one right beside the Laxmi Nagar Metro station. But stalls flaunting Morena on their banners strive to be more ambitious. They showcase a range of flavours: kaju, soan, badam, moongphali, gulab… even chocolate.
Last week, a stall surfaced in Old Delhi’s Sir Syed Road, opposite the Durga Mandir. The owner of Morena Gajak Bhandar says that his cooks are from Morena, who, according to him, possess a hereditary ability to rustle out the most aromatic gajaks. He warns not to blindly trust a gajak stall’s Morena branding. There is always a chance of the claim being fake.
The Delhi region’s densest concentration of authentic Morena gajak is in old Gurugram, along the lanes of Sadar Bazar. During the dish’s peak season — which centres around the bitter cold of December and January, scores of muscular “Morena wale” gajak “karigar” are seen hard at work in these stalls. Sitting on the floor on their haunches, right beside the street-facing counters, they continually beat down their heavy “balla” on the large hot gooey sheets of the gajak base. The wooden bat keeps making a rhythmic thak-thak sound, like Tendulkar hitting one chakka after another. The semi-molten sheet is finally folded many times over, knifed into small portions, and left to harden.
The tasty gajak loses its kick as the winter starts to fade. By Holi, in early March, the Morena wale go back to their Morena.