Thaggu Kai Laddu - Aisa Koi Saga Nahin, Jisko Humne Thaga Nahin

"Thaggu Kai Laddu" The name makes my mouth water :) To be honest to my readers, I was never aware of Thaggu or his famous Laddus until about 5 years ago.I would attribute this ignorance to the fact that I knew of no one who lived in modern day "Kanpur" or the anglicized "Cawnpore" or the actual "Kanhapur". Nopes, I hadn't heard of Thaggu.....My loss I would say.

I heard of Thaggu and his famous brand of Laddus when I was with Birlasoft in NOIDA. There were lots of people from Kanpur and then I used to intermittently hear about Thaggu kai Laddu. Finally the name registered on my mind, when my Project Manager once asked my best friend Vidisha who hailed from Kanpur to get 2 KG of Thaggu Kai Laddu for him. When I inquired about it, she just said it was  a famous shop selling Laddus. It always happens, people who have access to something seldom value or give enough importance to it. She obliged the PM by bringing in the Thagu kai Laddus, but the Sindhi kanjoos that she was, never brought one for me :(
 
Finally, it was another friend whose courtesy allowed me my first taste of Thagu Kai Laddu. There's an explosion of tastes on the tastebuds as the Laddu melts inside your mouth. You can feel the pure ghee, the dry-fruits, the coconut, etc complementing each other and racing together to give that unmistakable taste that is "Thaggu Kai Laddu" WoW!!!!

As things have a way of happening, I married my friend from Kanpur, Vidisha. So Thaggu became instantly accessible to me :) On one of my visits to my in-laws place I decided to make a visit to the famous Thaggu shop. Its a small shop but you can guess its popularity by the long line of customers waiting to lay thier hands on one of those sweet meats.


Its owned by one, Mattha Pandey aka Ram Avatar who ran away from home when he was 11 and arrived in Kanpur to much later set up a famous roadside shop and brand called ‘Thaggu Ke Laddu’ at Bada Chauraha Near Urshla Emergency market, Mall Road, Civil Lines,Kanpur. Story has it that young Mattha Pandey had been to one of the numerous public conferences of the great Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi ji  during one of his visits to Kanpur had stirred up nationalistic feelings by terming sugar as a posion...a white poison of the British. There were two reasons for terming sugar as a poison.  It had been termed as poison because,firstly white sugar or refined sugar is not good for health and is infact a slow poison for the body and secondly sugarcane farmers used to toil hard and all their riches were siphoned away by the British. Now young Mattha Pandey was flummoxed by this statement of Gandhiji. He was sweet seller. How on earth was it possible to make sweets without sugar? After much deliberation, the young and patriotic Mattha Pandey decided to be true to his customers and more importantly to his own heart and decided to continue making Laddu's with sugar. Thus was born the famous by-line, "aisa koi saga nahin, jisko humne thaga nahin" which loosely translated means “There is no relative left that we have not cheated.” So now he was cheating everyone who purchased his Laddu's but nevertheless he was warning them that he indeed was cheating them. This catchy tagline caught everyones imagination and the Laddu's became famous overnight. This surely is a learning for all those suited booted MBA's that ingenuity and truth always prevails.


The brand that is, Thaggu kai Laddu was lent more publicity when the AB junior super hit movie, "Bunty aur Babli" had a sceen shot in the movie and also used the tag line, "aisa koi saga nahin, jisko humne thaga nahin" in the movie. The shop also sells other sweets including another famous thing called "Badnam Kulfi". As per Mattha Pandey, the kulfi is named so, because anything found or sold on the street is ‘badnaam’ (of questionable character). Lolz...what a way of describing sweets.


Thanks to my sweet mother-in-law I get to savour the Thaggu Kai Laddu's anytime I visit to Kanpur or someone comes to our house from Kanpur. I can swear by anything, Thaggu and his Laddu's are one of the best things of Kanpur. My mouths watering and am drooling like a dog as I am writing this. Its been over 4 months since I tasted it because am in Chennai these days :( But I guess this is an added advantage to plan a trip for Kanpur soon.... :)