If you’ve ever been in the backstreets of the seedier parts of any of the Emirates, you will have been confronted by the mysterious knee-high red marks on walls in alleys and stairwells. What looks like the aftermath of a midget massacre is in fact the evidence of an extremely popular – and in the UAE, highly illegal – desi delight: paan.
Various potent-smelling – and tasting – unguents are slathered onto a palm-sized heart-shaped leaf from the betel nut tree, topped with crushed betel (areca) nut, rolled into a tiny triangular pouch and consumed with much relish, much like one would a cigarette: after a meal, or in a social setting.
This is a paan, which, after chewing and much mastication, may be swallowed or spat out.
Though the exact origins are uncertain, archaeological evidence places the origin of paan’s most popular incarnation – a combination of betel leaves, nuts, “choona” (slaked lime paste) and “katha” (acacia extract) – in Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia as far back as 4,000 years.
The addition of cured tobacco to the mix is a fairly recent innovation, though.
The paan was a permanent fixture of my childhood summers in Pakistan. I can’t recall ever having seen my paternal grandmother without a paan pressed behind her cheek, or without her paandan at her side.
A little silver box on four tiny legs, the paandan held all of the ingredients for her paan. The top folded back to reveal a tray with four compartments, one each for betel nuts, choona, katha and tobacco. Lifting the tray would reveal the bottom compartment, containing a stash of fresh, shiny green betel leaves and the nutcracker.
The ritual would start with a concentrated cracking of the whole betel nuts into appropriate-sized pieces. Then my grandma would take a betel leaf in her hand and, using a small metal wand dipped in each component in turn, she would layer choona and katha onto the leaf, sprinkle on some tobacco and some crushed betel nut, before folding the paan into a triangle and popping the whole thing in her mouth.
If you go out looking for a taste of this piece of desi culture here in the UAE, you will be sorely disappointed. The sale of paan is banned in the UAE for obvious reasons – it would seem that consumption of the paan leads to abandonment of all civic sense.
The inevitable mouthful of deep-red juice that one ends up with after chewing on a paan for several minutes is supposed to be spat out, not swallowed. Traditionally, there would be an ugaldaan (spittoon) at hand.
In the absence of an ugaldaan, however, paan chewers treat their mouthful of red as a creative medium. In paan-consuming cities, you will be hard-pressed to find a wall, pavement or road not squirted with red.
In fact, with all the desis in the UAE, you can find quite a lot of evidence of this here, too. And hence, the blanket ban on the sale of the tiny culprits.
That doesn’t stop diehard fans from making sure they get some whatever way they can. While the sale of paan is prohibited, bringing it into the country in small quantities is not. So, whenever we have friends visiting from Pakistan or India, the list of things we ask them to bring includes paan.
The writer is an honest-to-goodness desi living in Dubai
Dubai Bling season three
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Rating: 1/5
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Francesco Totti's bio
Born September 27, 1976
Position Attacking midifelder
Clubs played for (1) - Roma
Total seasons 24
First season 1992/93
Last season 2016/17
Appearances 786
Goals 307
Titles (5) - Serie A 1; Italian Cup 2; Italian Supercup 2
The specs
Engine: 3-litre twin-turbo V6
Power: 400hp
Torque: 475Nm
Transmission: 9-speed automatic
Price: From Dh215,900
On sale: Now
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Just as McDonald’s has the Big Mac, Jollibee has Spicy Chickenjoy – a piece of fried chicken that’s crispy and spicy on the outside and comes with a side of spaghetti, all covered in tomato sauce and topped with sausage slices and ground beef. It sounds like a recipe that a child would come up with, but perhaps that’s the point – a flavourbomb combination of cheap comfort foods. Chickenjoy is Jollibee’s best-selling product in every country in which it has a presence.
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The bio
Job: Coder, website designer and chief executive, Trinet solutions
School: Year 8 pupil at Elite English School in Abu Hail, Deira
Role Models: Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk
Dream City: San Francisco
Hometown: Dubai
City of birth: Thiruvilla, Kerala
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More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
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Stars: Jaideep Ahlawat, Ishwak Singh, Lc Sekhose, Merenla Imsong
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Fund-raising tips for start-ups
Develop an innovative business concept
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Be creative and innovative to reduce expenses
Be prepared to use Covid-19 as an opportunity for your business
* Tips from Jassim Al Marzooqi and Walid Hanna
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