Why it belongs in ORBIS
In the lanes of Pather Gatti near Hyderabad's Charminar, Purandas Ranchhoddas & Sons has distilled ittar since 1896, when the family patriarch Purandasji began trading perfumes and cosmetics after migrating from Burhanpur, Madhya Pradesh.
In the lanes of Pather Gatti near Hyderabad's Charminar, Purandas Ranchhoddas & Sons has distilled ittar since 1896, when the family patriarch Purandasji began trading perfumes and cosmetics after migrating from Burhanpur, Madhya Pradesh. His son Ranchhoddasji expanded into hair oils and other lines through the twentieth century, and the house won its defining honor in 1920, when the Nizam of Hyderabad's court selected Purandas as an official ittar supplier — legend holds the Nizam sampled scents personally before signaling his men to buy. A fire destroyed the original shop near Mecca Masjid; the family rebuilt at its present Gulzar Houz address in 1935 and has traded there since, now into a fifth generation. The house still distills alcohol-free attars — among them Hara Gulab and Jhankar — by the same methods used in the 1920s, sourcing sandalwood-oil bases and other raw materials from Mumbai, Kolkata, and France, alongside incense sticks and traditional hair oils like Zulf-e-Kashmir. No standalone website survives, but the shop trades daily and maintains an active IndiaMART storefront, a JustDial listing carrying over a hundred customer ratings, and a Facebook page — the ordinary commercial footprint of a Charminar-area heritage trader, not a tourist-facing brand.