Skip to main content

An Ara in Making

“Make sure you always carry the knife and cup in your pocket, one never know which you will encounter, the wine or enemy” This adage is more than an indication to illustrate that drinking is an integral part of Bhutanese Society. Drinking is more prevalent in eastern part of the country, so do people say. But almost every Bhutanese are known to relish the drinks.
Farmers do drink but only to relieve the pain and labour of having worked in the field for whole day. Working people say they drink to fight work stress, wives drink to counter family tension and kids say either the mum taught them or they want to look matured or is it because they love being in the realm world the alcohol is known to transport us …so, you see no sober people.
So, anyone ever wondered how is Ara, popularly known as distilled water is prepared. People just care to see that the bottle of ara (locally known as local) is placed on the table or the alcohol stand has variety of foreign drinks) However, I happened to encounter a lady making it and collected a little detail. Here is how it goes;
All the Ara maker need is fermented food, (the main raw material) big pot, piece of wet cloth, a bowl and small pot. Fill the big pot with the fermented food and mix it with water of right proportion. Place it over then oven and place a small pot inside before sealing the bowl and the pot with piece of wet cloth. Let it boil and do not forget to change the water on the bowl periodically.
The fermented food is heated and when it boils, the evaporation occurs which when coming to contact with the cold base of the bowl, the vapour condense and drop back on the small pot inside as ara. Ooppss…we already learnt about that in class eight Chemistry or we already know how rainfall take place.

So, Drinker or tankers out there, you now what is it that you are crazy about!!!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Love for a Days’s Trip

‘To meet, to know, to love and to depart is the law of life’ someone has said it. We rally with strangers and people we have never known before in homes, schools, institutions and other public gatherings because we are born in different places. When we meet the strangers, we make friends with some of them and sometime we fall in love with few of them especially the young guys and ladies. We remains committed and dedicated to friendship or loveship, whatever the relationship you are sharing. But for how long? You got to ask yourself. One fateful day, you find that you are departing from your friend or lover going away to find your own friend, your own lover and your own foes. Ofcourse, it hurts so much but it is a law the life has framed and you ought to obey it. And if you don’t keep in contact through all possible means, it is much easier to forget. While traveling in the bus, you share the seats with someone especially with spinsters and you introduce, talk and become friend and s
Post a Comment
Read more

A Long, long, long journey to Education

“Root of the education is bitter but the fruit is sweet” no one would know about it better than Kado. The fatigue of having to toddle to the school, fever of unending exams, the torture of having to burn the midnight oil, dozing in classes and the stern rigors are hard to endure, few even give up on the way but many endure it with utmost determination and commitment, because deep inside everyone knows it pays later. “Root of the education is bitter but the fruit is sweet” no one would know about it better than Kado Kado in the tender age of 12 is negotiating the lazily meandering footpath along the steep mountain. His school bag, full of books, pulls him back. His black naughty boy school shoe is all soiled, indication of how many times he has trudged that same footpath. He is on his way to the primary school in his village, almost 5 kilometers away. He has to make sure he is in the school before morning social work starts; else he gets penalized. Unlike the students who reside nearb
Post a Comment
Read more

Defining Tsa-Wa-Sum in One’s own Perspective

If I am asked, I would boldly answer, “The Tsa-Wa-Sum is “Gyeb, Gyelkhab and Meser”, (King, Country and People). But not everyone knows about what tsa-wa-sum is. Hence, when the superior ask them, they are left to conceive their own tsa-wa-sum. Once a meeting was convened by the Dzongdag. In a large congregation of illiterate rural people, the Dzongdag thundered, “do you know what tsa-wa-sum is?” “Can anyone from the crowd tell me?” The crowd went to pin drop silence and no one seems ready to answer. Are they scared of Dasho or no one has the slightest idea what it is? Suddenly, a Ngalop man sitting in the last bench, for whom Dasho is hardly visible, stood up. With his head bowed low, he answers, “The three tsa-wa-sum are Ngalops, Sharchops and Lhotsampas”. “This is because they are the three race in Bhutan” Dasho went into bout of annoyance but before he fired the man, another Lhotsampa (Southern Bhutanese Man) supplemented, “the three tsa-wa-sum are Royal Bhutan Army (RBA) Royal B
1 comment
Read more