My Dirtiest Habit

There are many dirty habits that are tasty one can't get rid of it though one regrets. Now, when I am fed up of everything, spicy dishes and chewing betel leaves, is still the loveliest joy for me! How it's a dirty habit? it's not merely a betel leaf, before chewing it slacked lime is pasted on it, a coat of catechu paste small cut pieces of betel-nut and finally spray of chewing tobacco. What else remains, splitting the red mixture in saliva here and there! When the western visitors saw it first, they thought every third or fourth Indian, has been suffering from Tuberculosis. How it started? An interesting story! Bad smell came from the mouth of Moghal Empress Noor Jahan, she consulted the Hindu Veds, they prescribed chewing of betel leaf, and it worked, but the chewing didn't last much as the leaves are fragile. Someone suggested adding small cut pieces of betel-nuts. It was not known at that time, betel-nuts are one of the sources of mouth cancer. Noor Jahan thought something should be added in it that can make the lips red. A thick paste of catechu, An astringent vegetable extract, was the answer of it. And then to make color shocking pink, before the paste of catechu slacked lime was pasted. Catechu paste is acidic in nature, Whereas, slacked lime is alkaline. It sharpened the color and reduced bitterness of catechu paste as well. Betel leaves became a part of Indian Culture. Indian languages got a new idiom, "Choona lagana", to paste the slacked lime, means to make harm to someone, as pasting slacked lime without catechu paste, injures the mouth and the tongue. But Noor Jahan never added chewing tobacco in it.