Siddiqui’s grandmother wasn’t a trained medical practitioner, and though her home was minutes away from Christian Medical College, the region’s largely agrarian workers preferred her herbal remedies to visiting the hospital. Rehman Nawabjan Siddiqui, an 80-year-old overseas Pakistani, spent his childhood summers in Vellore, India, with his Nani, or maternal grandmother, watching her treat ringworm with antiseptic garlic and wasp bites with anti-inflammatory onion juice. During rampant political turmoil or imminent famine, totkay were powerful portals into a world of healing: not alternatives, but medicine itself. Sharing totkay is a vestige of their resilience and resourcefulness. The custodians of these cures are often grandmothers who have lived through Partition, war or both.

Totkay speak to Pakistanis’ memory of their former selves. In contemporary Urdu, as South Asians gravitated away from these practices, we started using the term for herbal remedies, almost like magic cures or spells.” “Totka is a synonym of the word tona, and both used to be associated with black magic and witchcraft. “Totka means a cure of any negative or evil thing,” explained Syeda Nausheen Ali, who has been teaching Urdu in Karachi schools for the past 28 years.

The Urdu word “totka” is derived from Sanskrit, with its first usage in a 1683 book titled Suhagan Nama (“Married Women’s Songs”). From the pantry to the vanity, humble ingredients promise alluring returns. Anti-acne totkay use powdered, day-old roti (flatbread) and neem (Azadirachta indica, or Indian lilac) powder to control excess sebum production and unclog pores. In Pakistan, you simply have to voice (or show signs of) an ailment, and the totkay come rolling in.īeauty totkay are also popular, likely because using makeup and visiting salons are rites of passage reserved for married life in some Pakistani families, making natural remedies the self-care regimen of choice for many women. Travellers may see merchants board local buses and trains to sell “cures” for common ailments, while social gatherings often feature well-intentioned elders doling out life hacks. Lemon, turmeric and ginger are the holy trifecta for multiple illnesses, while drinking ghee induces labour and asafoetida cures flatulence. Totkay range from the pragmatic (treat styes with garlic sprinkle salt and turmeric to eliminate ants) to the obscure (place eggshells around your home to circumvent lizards poke cloves in a lemon to ward off dengue).

Imagery in a train to pakistan