The Oswal Jains—an enterprising community of traders, bankers and businessmen—migrated from small villages in Rajasthan to Murshidabad in the 18th century in search of better prospects. They settled down in suburbs like Azimganj, Jiaganj, Lalbagh, Nashipur and Cossimbazar, and came to be called the Sheherwalis or ‘city dwellers’.
With the strictly vegetarian Sheherwalis came their food habits which were peculiar to the arid geography of Rajasthan. When this cuisine collided with the bounty of Bengal, a whole new cuisine was born.
There was a time when it’s unlikely you would have heard of the cuisine if you were not a Sheherwali yourself. That’s until the brother-sister duo of Darshan and Lipika Dudhoria of Bari Kothi, Murshidabad took it upon themselves to popularise the cuisine among a larger audience.
The family
