it takes a bit of jostling past the wedding shoppers to reach this kinari bazaar shop run by a thirdgeneration sweet maker before you can lay your hands on a delicacy that is slowly disappearing from old delhis palatea lot of heat sweat and patience goes into the making of khurchan which traces its roots to western up probably khurja more famous for its pottery than the milkbased sweet sold at chandni chowks hazari lal jain khurchan walethe shop opens by 7am and soon five gasfired stoves are lit up in a row with karahis filled with milk kept to boil a skilled worker handles each karahi stirring the milk continuously and from time to time skimming off the malai from the top to the sides of the vessel with a twigit takes at least two hours and 7kg of milk to make one kilo of khurchan says sunil kumar jain 55 sitting in the shop named after his fatherthe malai is left to cool with karchis resting on top of discarded autorickshaw tyres then begins the layering process each layer of malai is cushioned with a dusting of sugar and the final layer is topped with kaju and pistamy grandfather hailing from madhya pradeshs bhind started making khurchan over a century ago from a godown near the marwari hospital along this very lane he shifted to this shop in the 60s says jain who could be the last from his family to make this sweetit is difficult now to get skilled workers who must squat for hours in the heat to make khurchan five years ago we started using amul diamond creamy milk after facing problems in sourcing buffalo milk he says i dont want my son who is a btech to take up my professionback in khurja around two hours drive from delhi another thirdgeneration sweet maker is more optimistic we make khurchan the traditional way using coal fire to boil buffalo milk on tawa says gyan prakash giri 53 who runs shiv misthan bhandarthe use of tawa instead of karahi with lesser quantity of milk is what makes the khurja preparation distinct once the milk is all evaporated the leftover malai forms a smooth sheet covering the entire tawa unlike the ring of malai stuck to the sides of the karahi in old delhigod has given us a sweet that does not last beyond a few days limiting us to khurja unlike the agra petha or mathura peda says giri the sweet sold at rs 600 a kg in old delhi and rs 400 in khurja has a short shelf life and is harder to make in summers when these cramped shops turning into ovensthis is a dying craft soon another old delhi delight may go the ghantewala way eventually disappearing among the rows of wedding shops