Guest column | A toast to the summer!

Way back, when carbonated drinks had not flooded the markets, youngsters relied on desi drinks to quench their insatiable summer time thirst.

Spending their summer time breaks studying collection such because the Well-known 5, Secret Seven and Trixie Belden the place the protagonists would go on a picnic with their baskets laden with cucumber sandwiches and bottles of lemonade on clear summer time days, they gratified themselves with shikanjvi or nimbupaani to beat the warmth.

The youngsters of the home would spend their evenings sprinkling water on khus curtains and brick-lined courtyards, and had been rewarded with tall glasses of rose sherbets, which had been both home-made (ready with desi gulab focus) or readymade (diluted Rooh Afza).

Earlier, solely restricted flavours of milk shake corresponding to mango, banana, vanilla or chocolate had been accessible. These days, youngsters have limitless decisions, they get to decide on between unique tropical flavours corresponding to kiwi, ardour fruit, dragon fruit or continental ones corresponding to blueberry, raspberry, strawberry and what not. Within the absence of Tetra Pak and bottled fruit juices, crushed ice slushes and slurpees, home-made seasonal fruit juice concentrates corresponding to aam panna, bael sherbet, sugarcane juice flavoured with ginger and rock salt and a few uncommon delicacies corresponding to brahmi, jamun and phalsa sherbet helped maintain cool.

Glasses of lassi seasoned with salt, black pepper, asafetida, roasted and crushed cumin seeds had been guzzled down on sizzling afternoons, reasonably than an array of flavoured yogurt. In these days of yore, 1000’s of sorts and flavours of ice lotions, Italian granita and sorbets in fancy parlours had not but marred the pleasure provided by restricted flavours of barf ka gola or chuskis dipped in pink, inexperienced and yellow syrups and even the standard orange bar or mango duet purchased off avenue distributors.

The household seemed ahead to the uncommon days when summer time specialties corresponding to gond katira shikanji, sattu and thandai had been served. As packaged coconut water had not changed the actual deal, individuals seemed ahead to their visits to coastal cities. These had been the times when candy and bitter jaljeera with mint and boondi had not been elbowed out by its fancier cousin, the mojito, and when the standard bantewali bottle was a success amongst youngsters, who now gravitate in the direction of iced tea with its assorted variants: lemon, mint and peach.

I’m not a believer of the cliché ‘outdated is gold’. Nevertheless, I’m a agency believer that issues shouldn’t be dominated out simply because they’re outdated. So, it’s time to dig out these long-lost recipes and lift a wholesome and refreshing toast to beat the summer time warmth!

sonrok15@gmail.com

The author is an affiliate professor at SD Faculty, Ambala Cantt