My Dirtiest Habit Poem by Akhtar Jawad

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.