Gulabsingh Johrimal

Gulab Singh Johrimal has traded from the same Dariba Kalan address in Old Delhi since 1816, when Lala Gulab Singh — an entrepreneur from Jhajjar in what is now Haryana — and his son Lala Johrimal opened a traditional perfumery on what is still the oldest retail market street in the old city. The house works by the deg-bhapka method, a hydro-distillation technique the family traces to the Indus Valley Civilisation: flowers, grasses and earth are packed into a copper still (deg) and condensed through a receiving vessel (bhapka) into a sandalwood or jojoba base, with no synthetic solvents involved. Mukul Gundhi, described as the seventh-generation torchbearer and master perfumer, now runs the counter, continuing a line the family surname itself reflects — "Gundhi" is Sanskrit for perfumer. The range includes single-note attars, ruh (pure distillates), bakhoor, dhoop and rose water, but its best-known productions resist synthetic replication entirely: Ruh Gulab, extracted from Indian Rosa Damascena and marketed as one of India's most expensive scents; Attar Mitti, distilled to capture the smell of parched earth after the first monsoon rain; and Attar Hina, a spiced-sandalwood blend said to have been favored by the poet Mirza Ghalib. Two centuries in, the shop still runs as a working still rather than a bottling counter for outsourced oils.