17. Travel in the Bazaar

I came across a strawberry seller and marvelled; I have never seen so many strawberries at one time. In Pakistan, there are so many cultivations of this fruit that they are sold by full carts in the street and they cost very little.

There are carts full of bananas, mandarins and of goyawa (guava); a beautifully perfumed fruit that is eaten with some salt and chili. It is delicious, it is my preferred fruit.

A tasbih seller was walking by the street with colourful beads hanging down at his side. Tasbihs are the Islamic equivalent of Christian rosaries. There are 99 beads, one for each of Allah’s most beautiful names, the Merciful, the Creator, The Sustainer, the forgiver, the Almighty, etc…
I have bought 3 beautiful coloured tasbihs for my small girls and for my wife.

As I felt hungry, I went to the toffee shop and bought sweets of every taste just to try these new delicacies, because toffees here are very different from the ones we have in Italy.

I bought so many that the seller had to use the calculating machine to calculate the price.

Then I stopped by the perfumer’s shop and I asked them to show me their empty bottles for my own perfumes. I did not want to smell their fragrances because I know that nearly all of them are just chemical scents. However, the bottles are beautiful.

We talked a while about things of interest to perfumers and in the end, it was I who had them smell my perfumes.

I liked the second perfumer that I visited very much because he looked like me when I was younger with a white turban and black beard, so I asked him to let me smell the best scents of his shop (obviously the most expensive ones).

He presented me with the green Khus of India and the Oud essence. Khus is the name for the essential oil extracted from the Vetiver roots. The Indian Khus is the best in the world but it is very difficult to find it pure in the shops.

The khus from this young boy is exhilarating, it reminds me strongly of the Kashmiri Muskdeer scent. I bought only a small bottle because my money was almost gone.

Night had already fallen when I passed a watch seller. I had never seen so many wonderful and strange watches that looked like jewellery, and I chose two of them for Mariam and Fatima but nothing for Aisha because she always grumbles when I buy for her jewellery that she hasn’t chosen for herself.

I went back home with the booty of the day and showed it all to Badjee Nassim

She immediately asked me for the address of the perfumer in order to buy some Khus. She wants to use it in the fabrication of her creams because she knows that this essential oil is a cure for irritated and inflamed skin, but she does not know how to recognize the good quality as I do, being a perfumer.
Perhaps she should put some perfume also in her oil for growing new hair because she makes it with so many eggs and the smell is not so good.