Spring has sprung and the coming of spring makes you want to fall in love with life all over again.  Zephyr kisses my cheek, soft sunlight caresses my soul, fragrant blooms play magic on my senses and the joy of living and life spontaneously whispers ‘thank you God for the birds that sing, thank you God for everything.’

A picture perfect setting for an almost paradise-like day; a cue for Mr. Allergy and Mrs. Hypersensitivity, the killjoy couple, to overtake spring and ruin chances for most to enjoy the enchanting season.

I wonder if millennia ago, cavemen sat around sneezing the season away. Just when they were getting ready to hunt down prey, perched behind ragweed, hay fever must have struck killing any and all chances of deer dinner. Surely, after countless such incidents the cave doctor must have formulised a concoction of sorts to make the sneezes go away.

Thousands of years down and we still suffer the same fate, we may live in the east or west, USA or Pakistan, but the sneezes, the tickling nose and teary eyes bind us together as a people like almost nothing else, the allergy season is here – watch the power of the allergens.

Come spring we are bombarded with the use of numerous nasal sprays and countless different powerful over-the-counter and prescription medications to combat the allergies. Kids and adults alike suffer from hay fever to severe bouts of asthma during the spring and summer months and come fall, or autumn, the flu season takes over, hence ending the misery for the year.

Come this allergy season I started my seasonal dose of medication, all the while cursing my kismet for being the only one of my siblings who was gifted the sneezes through the genetic pool, thank you sweet father.

While taking medication last week it suddenly dawned on me that I had suffered the allergies all my life but how had I been able to combat them in Karachi, without medication, and not the USA? The answer was simple – a homemade brew called Joshanda.

My father was very aware, sympathetic and empathetic of the fact that he had handed me allergies as an inheritance gift, and because we shared this father-daughter bond, we commonly talked about the curse of the sneezes, how they happen at the most inopportune of times, how embarrassing they can be, how the smell of a perfume can trigger them, how a picnic in the glorious outdoors can potentially be ruined and result as a day in bed with a tissue box for a companion and so forth. But my father being the man he was, had a solution for this suffering of mine, and his, and it was called Joshanda.

I thing I may have been ten, or a little younger, when my father after having observed my misery come March, decided that it was time for me to taste the brew.

‘No abu it looks and smells really unpleasant. You reap its benefits, keep me out of it.’ But my dad was a man of his words and since he had decided that the brew had definite benefits, no child of his could be left denied. Bedtime arrived a little too early that day and I sat perched on my bed as my dad insisted I sip the brew. I did, my first taste of it was mighty unlikable but regardless, I had to finish every last sip of it, and I did.  From that day forward, our household had two officially allergy-stricken individuals. I had finally been inducted into the club.

The next decade-and-a-half was spent drinking the homemade brew through spring, summer and autumn and the result, an allergy free damsel out of her distress.  Unbelievable as it may sound but I actually came to enjoy its taste and smell, it was the real stuff, no additives, no freeze dry concoction, no ready to drink sachet, but a simple medicinal brew filled with love.

My father would make a trip to Gizri or Dehli Colony to buy the individual herbs soak them in water for a few hours and then boil the essence down to a cup. The word 'Joshanada' literally means 'essence of the boiled stuff,' and that is exactly what I drank all those years.

Now that my father has passed and I am a mother myself, I look at my daughter sniffling and me giving her a little white pill to cure her sneezes. Ah, am I in an immigrant’s dilemma with no easy access to individual Joshanda herbs, or am merely looking for a cop out to justify my lack of seasoned Joshanda love for instant pill resolution? I think I know the answer to that question, and I don’t like it!

My mother was kind enough to pass on the exact amount of herbs needed to make the brew, and while passing on that information, relayed the story as to how my father stumbled upon the important recipe. It was at a family funeral, when my father apparently appeared teary eyed, not due to the death in the family, but because of the apparent affliction of a bout of serious allergies, that a distant relative took pity on his condition and passed on the magic formula.

With the ingredient chit in hand and mission in heart, I begin my search for the herbs. I do not know of the outcome, I do not know if I will be successful, all I know is that the taste and smell of the real thing reminds me of a sweet man in my life, it brings memories of someone who loved to see me enjoy spring, it brings warmth of parental love, and I call it Joshanda love.

Bisma Tirmizi is a writer based in Las Vegas

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