The humid afternoon air is heavy with blaring traffic and thick smoke of vehicles, as I approach the busy Town Hall Road junction. It's the week preceding Diwali and the number of festival shoppers on the roads is burgeoning. Amidst all the chaos, a faint yet unmistakable whiff of ghee and sugar tingle my senses. I trace it down to a bustling 'halwa kadai' sandwiched in a corner of a shopping complex. It's the legendary Prema Vilas, a name to reckon with Madurai's rich food scene.
Madurai, Tamil nadu 12/10/2017,The famous prema Vilas halwa shop on west veli street in Madurai . Photo: G. Moorthy
For the past six decades, it's a ritual of sorts for Maduraiites to pause by at this landmark place and relish a handful of the mouth-watering 'godhumai halwa'. Wading my way through other sweet lovers, I ask for the delicacy. The wait isn't long and a blob of the gooey halwa arrives, neatly laid on a rustic textured Mandharai leaf for just Rs.10. I eagerly scoop out a small portion and the warm sweet halwa melts in the mouth, coating my food pipe with sugar. In the next few seconds, I sheepishly lick my ghee-dripping fingers, just like everyone around. The precise two-minute indulgence ends with the customary 'kaaram', which is always a wee bit of the spicy mixture that's given away as a free token.
Madurai, Tamil nadu, 10/10/2017 Sweets being made for Diwali at the factory of prema Vilas in Madurai. Photo: G. Moorthy.
“The secret is the consistency of our halwa that slides down. You don't have to chew it,” says M Sashidharan, one of the six cousins running the show. “From the cooking method to the way the halwa is offered on a Mandharai leaf, it’s unlike any other halwas. We bring in the leaves from Assam to maintain the tradition.” He adds, “ The shop was opened in 1954 by our grand father Ganga Ram Singh, who relocated to Madurai from Thenkasi. The credit of inventing the Prema Vilas brand of halwa with its unique taste and flavours goes to him.” Singh named the brand after his first daughter Prema bai, which is now being managed by the third generation of cousins -- M Kishen Singh, A Saravanan, S Ganga Ram Singh, M Sashidharan, M Prabhakaran and M Manoj.
Madurai, Tamil nadu, 10/10/2017 Sweets being made for Diwali at the factory of prema Vilas in Madurai. Photo: G. Moorthy.
Visitors to the shop includes hawkers, shoppers, passers by and travellers and the place sees brisk business round-the-clock from 4 a.m. to midnight. However, it's the efforts of a battery of cooks who toil it out everyday, dishing out batches of halwa from the production unit at Subramaniapuram. “Making halwa is a long tedious process,” says Cook Arumugam who along with his two assistants turn up promptly at 7 a.m. every morning. The signature halwa is cooked in colossal iron woks placed over simmering earthen chulhas. “You need to keep stirring for hours and only then can the taste and consistency be maintained. The first batch of halwa reaches the shop at 8.30 a.m.”
“The USP of the halwa is that it's fresh and full of flavour. The abundance of ghee and sugar in it makes it a lip-snacking dish. It's in fact addictive,” says M Prabhakaran. “We oversee the production regularly. I taste a spoonful of every batch to check quality. All of us in the family knows to make halwa, as initially the women at home used to make it. Only later, the recipe was passed on carefully to successive cooks. The method and ingredients is still a guarded trade secret.”
“In the 80's, whenever people from other districts visited Madurai, they would invariably eat at College House and stop by for halwa at our shop. The tradition is still alive among shoppers who come to town for Diwali purchase,” says S Ganga Ram Singh. “I know of a regular customer from Ramnad who eats 250gms of the halwa in one go on all of his visits. Many people buy packets of halwa before boarding the morning train or bus. It has become like a souvenir from Madurai and with a good shelf life of 15 days without refrigeration, people even pack it abroad.”
“When Mahendra Singh Dhoni visited the city in 2013, he enjoyed the halwa. Cricketers including Mathew Hayden, Dean Jones and Brett Lee have also tasted the delicacies during their trips to Madurai for TNPL matches,” adds Sashidharan.
A whopping 400 Kgs of halwa is sold daily and during peak season, the sales spiral up. “Our production goes up manifold times during Diwali. But more than the halwa, it's the other sweets that sell for festivals. Though the halwa hogs the limelight, there are also other special items like the mota mixture that’s sought after. The day before Diwali, our shop sees a heavy rush and we keep it open till late after usual hours. There are also instances where we had sold off all our stock and shut shop much before midnight,” says Sashidharan. With over 50 varieties of sweets and a dozen kinds of halwas and namkeens sold across nearly eight shops in the city, Prema Vilas has indeed carved out a unique niche for itself.
