Deccan Queen | Lonavala Chikki | TShirt

Proudly wear this Deccan Queen | Lonavala Chikki | TShirt. This t-shirt is a tribute to our favorite food memory from the Lonavala railway station halt by Deccan Queen. 

Onboard the Deccan Queen, travelers always wait for the early halt at Lonavala where they can grab some local delights in terms of Chikki - a truly Indian innovation from the 19th Century. Lonavala-chikki is closely associated with an Indian Railways journey. Innovation of Lonavala Chikki helped build railroads in India. 

The tale dates back to the British Raj, when the Empire recruited workers in Maharashtra to build a railway line to connect erstwhile Bombay to its closest hill station, Lonavala. Since laying tracks across mountains was a tedious job, a sweet shop owner named Maganlal Aggarwal in Lonavala decided to make them a cheap, high-calorie snack. That is when he invented the Gud Dani, a mixture of peanuts, melted jaggery and ghee, which is also known as Chikki. Like energy bars, these were distributed to the workers and were a hit among them. Once the project was completed, the chikkis traveled along with workers as it was a convenient snack for the journey. Seeing a business opportunity, the railway authorities commissioned Maganlal Aggarwal to prepare chikki and sell them to travelers between Mumbai and Lonavala.