1 Kilo Gulab Jamun For Rs 14! Sweet Shop Menu From The 1980s Goes Viral

When we dream of the “good old days,” we often think about how uncomplicated life used to be. We find ourselves wishing to go back to a simpler time – perhaps when we did not have to worry about money, careers and relationships. Yesterday, a video on Twitter showing two schoolboys playfully sharing a single tiffin made people reminisce about happier times. Today, another post is making netizens nostalgic, but for a different reason. A photo posted on the Facebook page ‘Gagret Hulchal’ shows the menu card of a sweet shop from 4 decades ago. The prices – which seem shockingly low compared to today’s standards – are garnering all sorts of reactions online.
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The photo seems to be the price list for sweets and snacks sold by Lovely Sweet House on 17, Hardyal Road Jalandhar Cantonment. The photo has been captioned, “Year 1980 – Famous Lovely Sweet Price List.” According to it, the price of sweets like motichur laddoo, rasgulla, gulab jamun, kheer mohan, etc. was in the range of Rs. 10 to Rs. 14 per kg. Today, we often do not get one piece of the mithai for that much. For slightly premium types of mithai, like chocolate barfi and pista barfi, the price is shown as Rs. 18 and Rs. 20 per kg – but never more than that. Check out the original post here:

As you can see, snacks like samosa, kachori and paneer pakora cost less than 1 rupee in those days. Today, the same snacks cost anywhere between Rs.10 to Rs. 100. Netizens were naturally fascinated by this menu. Given that prices of goods seem to be rising nearly every day, some people felt nostalgic about a time when mithai was (apparently) not so costly! Others have pointed out that the prices seem high for that time period as we need to adjust the value of the currency accordingly. Others have argued that the date may be sometime after 1980. After all, the paper of the menu looks discoloured with age. But there is no mention of the exact year on it. Here are some of the reactions of Facebook users:
“Those wonderful days will never come back.”
“During that time, milk price was only 0.50/- Nowadays milk price is too high, right?”
“Very costly. The price is much higher than the current price.”
“Those were the sweetest days”
“I like the sweets in this shop… Really missing it”
“We enjoyed so much the 18Rs gulab jamun.”
“It’s too costly considering the money value of the 1980s, samosa and jalebi used to cost 15 paise.”
“One of the finest sweet shops in Punjab. I used to visit there regularly during my stay in Jalandhar way back in 1996-2000”
“I need a time machine, desperately.”

Also Watch: This Funny Menu Of A Restaurant Is Perfect For All Confused Visitors

The post has received 28K likes and 1.6K comments so far. What do you think of these mithai prices? Let us know in the comments

About Toshita SahniToshita is fuelled by wordplay, wanderlust, wonderment and Alliteration. When she is not blissfully contemplating her next meal, she enjoys reading novels and roaming around the city.