I bought Google yesterday

Please do not take for nuts or something for saying that I bought 'Google' yesterday. Because I really mean it and I did buy google yesterday.

Let me tell you how - because I know you are still taking me as someone out of my minds or something. So please read this post till the end to find out whether I am OK or ...

Well this the season of humidity and rains and when it is not raining and sun is shinning, the weather become too humid and it makes difficult to breathe both for people and other living beings on or under the ground. Those over it find some shade and have a temporary escape from the sun, yet still sweating profusely due to timidity, the living beings living inside the surface are compelled to get out to breathe and find somewhere cool enough to sustain the weather.

One of these living beings are snakes - the dreaded crawlers that come out of their holes and try to find a cooler place. As this is also their breeding season, their offsprings, tiny and many, also are on the move and find the gap between doors to crawl inside the rather cold houses. 

Over the past many days, I have killed many such crawlers who were enjoying free hospitality under sofas and chairs, hidden from direct observation.

You may be wandering what Google has to do with the snakes and humidity. Well if you are still doubting my mental health for having bought Google, let me now reveal the secret.

Well yesterday my wife asked me to go buy Google - I momentarily thought she was asking me to Google and find an answer to the snake kiddies coming into our house. So I sat on my computer and tried to find some solutions. Seeing me not moving, she came and asked me as why I do not go and buy Google? Well I told her that I am trying to find the answer by Googling it. 

A smile came on her face and said, "I am not asking you to Google it on the net - go and buy Google from some store. And then it dawned on me what she meant by Google. She was asking me to buy 'GOOGAL' - a herb that when burnt on coal gives out smoke that repels snakes and other insects. So I went to an old shop selling Eastern herbs and bought Googal for Rs. 80 for 50 grams. The shopkeeper also advised my to buy 'Hermal' and leaves of 'Lehri' and burn these along with Googal and smoke the areas for frequent crawling places of snake kiddies.

Would it work, I do not for sure, but the fact remains that I bought Google or Googal yesterday for Rs. 80. Hows that!!

If you like Jaho Jalal, please follow us on Facebook

Read More

The Summer Antidotes

Summers are really hard to live. From mid May to end September, there is no respite from the summer heat. (un)Fortunately we have the accompanying man-made partnership when the summer comes – our very no-dearly load shedding, which makes us sweat more than the weather and nature had ever desired. So where to go and what to do?

Well, fetch a cola to lower your temperatures. But do you think it really does? I don’t think so. But if we return to our very indigenous drinks, that in cities people don’t talk about much, specially in modern localities, lest they be labeled as “paindus – the villagers.” While in fact these drinks are the best and natural antidotes to beat the heat of the summers. Lets take these one by one.

The simple, easiest to make and perhaps the cheapest is the “Sikanjbeen – or Nimbo Pani” – or simply the local lemonade. Made from the juice of fresh lime, add sugar to your taste (shouldn’t be very sweet), a pinch of salt, ice and water. Easy, I told you.

Satoo and Shakar – Barley powder and raw sugar made from the sugar canes in the villages. Add water and ice and let me tell you this will be so refreshing that it will have a cool air conditioning effect on and inside your body.

Tukham-e-Malangan: I really cannot translate these black small seeds, which are added to a glass of sweetened water and drank. I personally don’t like these much, but this is a very favourite drink across the entire country.

Gannay ka Ras: Easily available along the roadsides, is the fresh juice of the sugar canes and ice added to it. Some say that this is the best to beat the heat and patients suffering from Jaundice are encouraged to drink this as it lessens the effect of heat (which is the main cause of the disease). But there is a caution here. Ask the vendor to first cleanse the sugar cane with water so that it is cleansed of the residuals left by the flies swarming on the sugar canes.

These are some that I recall. So instead of various types/colours of bulls available in the market, drink either of the drinks above. You may have four to five full glasses in the cost of one… bull. Give it a try – there is nothing bad if you are called a “paindu” while your thirst is quenched and heat is beaten off in a few bucks.

Read More