New Delhi: “No Mughal ever ate Mughaliya food, because Mughaliya food is defined by the hotness of chilies,” says the speaker on stage. Why? Because chillies were not to be found on the Indian subcontinent before the 16th century. The age-old debate between Bengal and Odisha on the question of who created Rosogolla is moot when you consider that the main ingredient of the modern rosogolla, the cottage cheese, was nowhere to be found in India till the Portuguese arrived.

Speaking on the first day of the Jindal Literature Festival, oral historian Sohail Hashmi, with all the flair of the seasoned storyteller that he is, traced the evolution of the cultures of India back to a millennia ago, connecting the dots between actual history and fictional accounts, debunking narratives that have beco

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