The tale of Khushabi Dhodha

Sweet may be considerably famous outside of Khushab, but few know the story behind it


Shaukat Malik June 03, 2020

KHUSHAB: If you ever find yourself wondering whether you should visit Khushab, what you should really ask yourself is ‘do I have a sweet tooth’. If there is one thing that the city is known for – the world over, thanks to Punjab’s diaspora – it is a rich sticky dessert named Khushabi Dhodha.

For the city’s residents, that dessert is no less than an institution. Be it Eid, a wedding or a birthday, no celebration in the city is complete without it. The entire city, in fact, is dotted with multiple outlets specialising in it. If you happen to pass through Khushab, you would be sure to see Dhodha shops lining the road end to end.

But even as they enjoy the sweet, not many outside of the city know its history. The story, as recounted by residents, involves a wrestler and his search for the perfect high energy food.

The wrestler in question was named Hans Raj and his story dates all the way back to the first quarter of the 20th century. A resident of Khushab at the time, Raj was looking for a dish that was both nutritious and delicious, it is said. After tinkering about, he found his perfect recipe by combining various dried fruits with ghee and other local ingredients.

Pretty soon, Raj realised his recipe was developing its own fandom in the city of Khushab, and so, he established the first Dhodha shop in 1912. Following the partition in 1947, Raj and his family migrated the other way and settled in the city of Kot Kapura in Indian Punjab. Although he died a little more than a decade later, his children continued the tradition of selling his dessert under the brand ‘Royal Dhodha’ in India.

Raj did not keep the recipe to himself, however. The wrestler reportedly had two protégés – a Hindu named Kushlal Khushabi and a Muslim named Haji Mohammad Amin Sanochar.

While the former followed Raj to India and later opened shop in Gurgaon, Haji Mohammad stayed back in Khushab, perfecting the recipe and sharing it with other local sweetmakers to satisfy the cravings of the city the wrestler had left behind. So, it was in this way that the Khushabi Dhodha was developed and the residents of the city will argue that the end product is far superior to the original recipe.

Nowadays, Khushab has thousands of Dhodha outlets and many locals even make their own homemade versions of the popular dessert. That said, many residents complain that of late vendors have started using substandard ingredients in Dhodha preparation, violating the spirit that led Hans Raj to develop the dessert. For both health and heritage’s sake, they have appealed to Punjab authorities to ensure all food standards are followed during the sweet’s commercial preparation.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 3rd, 2020.

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