Most Indians have rather a sweet tooth and Indian sweets , usually made of milk, can be very sweet indeed. Of the more solid type, barfi , a kind of fudge made from milk which has been boiled down and condensed, varies from moist and delicious to dry and powdery. It comes in various flavours from plain creamy white to pista (pistachio) in livid green and is often sold covered with silver leaf (which you eat). Smoother-textured, round penda and thin diamonds of kaju katri , plus moist sandesh and the harder paira , both popular in Bengal, are among many other sweets made from chhana or boiled-down milk. Crunchier mesur is made with chick peas; numerous types of gelatinous halwa, not the Middle Eastern variety, include the rich gajar ka halwa made from carrots and cream.

 

Getting softer and stickier, those circular orange tubes dripping syrup in sweet-shop windows, called jalebis and made of deep-fried treacle, are as sickly as they look. Gulab jamuns , deep-fried cream cheese sponge balls soaked in syrup, are as unhealthy. Common in both the north and the south, ladu consists of balls made from semolina flour with raisins and sugar and sometimes made of other grains and flour, while among Bengali sweets, widely considered to be the best are rasgullas , rosewater-flavoured cream cheese balls floating in syrup. Ras malai , found throughout north India, is similar but soaked in cream instead of syrup.

Chocolate is improving rapidly in India and you'll find various Cadbury's and Amul bars. None of the various indigenous brands of imitation Swiss and Belgian chocolates appearing on the cosmopolitan markets are worth eating.

Among the large ice-cream vendors, Kwality (now owned and branded as Walls), Vadilal's, Gaylord and Dollops stand out. Uniformed men push carts of ice cream around and the bigger companies have many imitators, usually quite obvious. Some have no scruples - stay away from water ices unless you have a seasoned constitution. Ice-cream parlours selling elaborate concoctions including sundaes have really taken off; Connaught Circus in Delhi has several. Be sure to try kulfi, a pistachio- and cardamom-flavoured frozen sweet which is India's answer to ice cream; bhang kulfi (not available everywhere but popular during the festival of Holi) is laced with cannabis and has an interesting kick to it, but should be approached with caution