Around Town: Inside Punjabi Ghasitaram Halwai, the 110-year-old mithai shop in Mumbai that was featured in Irrfan Khan’s Angrezi Medium

The brand traces its roots to Karachi, where it was founded in 1916 by Ghasitaramdas Bajaj. What began as a modest eatery serving parathas, chole bhature, halwa, and lassi alongside a few mithais grew steadily. By 1947, he ran two eateries-cum-mithai shops in Bombay Bazaar, a bustling Karachi neighbourhood.

Then came Partition.

‘We were given just 24 hours to leave for India’

“But Partition happened, and we were given just 24 hours to leave for India. My great-grandfather had to leave everything behind,” Kunal recounted, sharing a story passed down through generations. “Women and children were allowed to leave first, so he sent his wife and children to relatives in Amritsar. He hid in a haystack in a truck to cross over, exactly like they showed in Gadar,” Kunal said.

Kunal V Bajaj, fourth-generation custodian of Punjabi Ghasitaram Halwai, with his father Vippal G Bajaj at the Mahim retail store of the mithai shop | Express Photo by Akash Patil

A few years later, when a group of young traders who had migrated from Pakistan set off for Bombay in search of work, Ghasitaramdas’ son, Goverdhandas Bajaj – then in his early 20s – joined them, hoping to build a future. “They arrived in Kalbadevi, which was the hub of trade at the time. My grandfather was a good cook, so he pooled together some money and began selling simple Punjabi food on a handcart — parathas, aloo puri, halwa, and lassi,” said Kunal. In 1949, he rented a shop and opened his first eatery and mithai outlet, naming it after his father, Ghasitaram.

There was a growing demand for ghee-laden sweets then. Karachi halwa, with its jelly-like texture, was especially popular, as were son halwa, gujiya, and kada halwa (it is made from wheat flour).

Punjabi Ghasitaram Halwai manufactures over 500 products, from Bengali sweets and halwas to sugar-free mithais and namkeens | Express Photo by Akash Patil

Slowly, the business expanded — first came another shop in Kalbadevi, then outlets on Mohammad Ali Road, Grant Road, and later in Andheri and Chembur. By the early 1990s, the brand had nearly 40 outlets across Mumbai, offering sweets, North Indian food, Chinese dishes, juices, and live malpua and jalebi counters. Goverdhandas was also credited with introducing sticky, dense, and fudge-like doda barfi, which continues to be their bestseller in Bombay, after a trip to Amritsar in his 50s left him inspired to upgrade his recipes.

Sharing an anecdote, Vippal G Bajaj, 75, the fourth of five sons of Goverdhandas, recalls the family’s film connections. “He was friends with B R Chopra and even appeared as a halwai in some of his films,” he laughed. One such iconic moment features Johnny Walker as Gulam Rasool in Aadmi Aur Insaan (1969), where he wanders through a sweet shop sampling every mithai with exaggerated gusto, grinning and teasing the shopkeeper as he attempts to eat his fill without paying.

“The Kapoor family loved our food! Raj Kapoor would visit our Chembur shop to buy samosas, rasmalai, and phirni.” An engineer from the University of Leeds, Vippal, also played a key role in modernising the business. “When I joined, we were still making mithais on bhattis. I introduced steam boilers and automation.”

After Goverdhandas passed away in 1993, his five sons continued the business together. Differences in working styles eventually led them to part ways in 2000. “Some continued with mithai shops, others rented out their properties or moved into different businesses. My father, my brother Rahul, and I stayed on with the mithai business,” said Kunal.

By early 2020, just before the pandemic, the brothers were running around 24 retail stores along with a robust B2B and export business, manufacturing nearly 500 products, from Bengali sweets and halwas to sugar-free mithais and namkeens. The placement in Angrezi Medium was part of a marketing push aimed at expansion. “The film released on March 13, 2020, and just a few days later, the country went into lockdown,” Kunal recalled. “Everything shut down overnight. We had to send nearly 200 workers home safely. Some rented stores were lost along with deposits worth lakhs. Catering clients defaulted, businesses shut down, and we suffered massive losses. We had to almost start from scratch.”

The crisis forced a rethink. “We realised sweets were becoming more festival-centric, so we shifted focus to exports and B2B. The aim was to stay cash-positive every day,” said Kunal. Retail was scaled down to fewer than five outlets, including their long-standing Mahim counter and a few shop-in-shop formats. Today, retail contributes about 15 per cent of the business, while B2B accounts for 60 per cent and exports 25 per cent. Punjabi Ghasitaram Halwai now exports to 10 countries and supplies sweets to leading restaurants, hotels, railways, and airlines.

Five years on, the family has found its footing again. And Kunal is cautiously eyeing growth. “We’re looking at opening around 10 retail stores in 2026, starting with Andheri, Juhu, Vashi, and Thane,” he said. “Once we re-establish ourselves in Bombay, we’ll look at Delhi-NCR.”