Kashmiri soda

Sensory memories are the best kind of memories.

In April this year there was a family get together at my home. My relatives are really fond of carbonated drinks. Everybody was having Pepsi or Coca-Cola after the meal. I am not fond of carbonated drinks yet there was an insistence on me to have something. So I had prepared a simple drink for me: jaljeera, little lemon juice, and club soda. I mixed it all together and sat with my relatives sipping on my drink. I took one sip and it transported me back to my childhood.

I remembered it was few days before Diwali. I was with my parents to shop for new clothes on the occasion of Diwali. We had been walking and searching for clothes for over 2 hours. When we completed our shopping we all were thirsty. We decided to get something to drink.

In the shopping centre we saw that there was a small shop of a vendor who was preparing beverage in front of us. We visited that shop. This shop contained only one server who himself was the owner of the shop. He was selling only one type of beverage. He had named that beverage as Kashmiri soda. We were curious to know what was it. So my dad had ordered two of those. Shopkeeper prepared the drink in front of us. He added a powder from a container to a mug. Then he squeezed an entire lemon on the powder. After that he added club soda to it. He stired the entire mixture and served it to us. My dad took the first sip and handed it over to me to drink. He told me, "be careful it is spicy". As per my dad's instructions I gently took the sip but I immediately started coughing. That was because the drink was really spicy. But the taste was amazing. It was spicy, salty, sour and tangy. It tasted like the spicy water of pani puri but mixed with soda. It was a taste that I had never tested before. I like it so much that despite coughing I took another sip of it. I started coughing again. Then I decided that though I had liked that soda I should not have it for the sake of my throat.

Later it had become a ritual. Whenever we would go for a shopping at the shopping centre we would visit the shop and drink Kashmiri soda from it. The shopkeeper also had become familiar with our family. Whenever he would see us at the shopping centre he would wave at us and ask us how many mugs of soda he should prepare.

I used to like the Kashmiri soda so much that when I was in the college my friends had come with me for shopping and I had taken them to his shop to drink Kashmiri soda. They were impressed with the delicious treat. Kashmiri soda had not only become a drink but it was an emotion.

That day when I had prepared myself a carbonated drink with jaljeera it immediately reminded me of the Kashmiri soda. I immediately remembered the shopping centre, the shop, and the Kashmiri soda that we use to get there. One sip made me feel nostalgic. It brought back all the memories associated with that taste.