March 6. “Button, a friend of Dost sent tons of bael. Do you know what bael is?”

“Is it a fruit?”

“Right. Your IQ is getting better every day. Hardly ever have I asked you a question and not got a correct answer. Nobody knew what to do with this fruit and how it should be eaten. It suddenly struck me that, as kids, we used to eat this fruit after my mother prepared it in a particular way.”

“I know what you will say next.”

“What?”

“That you will call your mom and she’ll tell you how bael is to be eaten.”

“Absolutely right and found out that the fruit has to be ripe for you to eat it or it can be boiled to make sherbet. Want to try some fresh bael sherbet that’s just been made?”

“Of-course.”

“Bael is also good if you have a bad tummy as well as constipation. Now what I was actually getting at is that these tips will be lost to the present generation and generations to come. My girls haven’t even heard of bael. One daughter flatly refused to eat it because she did not like the look. It looks gooyi—she told me. Hence a lot of vital information and tips will get lost when the older generation goes into the great beyond and take most of their knowledge with them. I still remember how my father treated asthmatic patients with a kind of herb and since I accompanied him on those trips, I also plucked this herb to help him out. He’s not around anymore and I have moved to another city. I doubt if I can recognize the herb if I saw it today. Times have also changed—who has that kind of time to go around picking herbs when you have doctors to treat you with fake and expensive drugs and charge a bomb!”