Common Remedies for Common Cold

All my life, I have been getting biannual visits from my dear old friend, the common cold. Every time the weather changes even slightly, I become borderline incapacitated, my running nose gives Usain Bolt a run for his money, and the coughing fits very often make me wish I didn't have a throat. This is truly not a pleasant state to be in, and I don't think these suggestions are of any real use either.

The classic gurgle – hot water and salt
My family thinks that gurgling is the solution to every problem one might ever encounter in their life. It fixes everything, from a cold to obesity to uneven tans. In reality it just induces vomiting, making your already gross existence infinitely grosser.

The classic tea – lemon and ginger
This one is not entirely useless, as it does soothe the throat and subsides the pain for about 3 minutes, which is really a lot for me. The downside is that this thing tastes horrible enough to be turned into a new flavour of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans.

Herbal medicine
What's more interesting than the fact that people still suggest herbal medicine, is the task of processing and taking these. My grandparents make me drink a green liquid, which is made using a paste of Tulsi leaves plucked during the second full moon of the year and then mixed with water and you have to drink that liquid while facing 43 degrees north at 3.49 AM… it tastes quite good though.

All orange everything – Ye Olde Vitamin
Back in the ages people used to die from scurvy which was caused by a vitamin deficiency, so of course you should load yourself with tonnes of vitamin C when you have a cold. Except, this never seems to work. Is it because the orange juice we have here is not pure at all and even the fruits are rigged with bhejal? I can't tell. Also, C-Vit does absolutely nothing to help and it is too sweet to even taste good.

Vapour rub/machine/
towel
I mean, I get it, you vape.
Getting off of the phone/laptop
Finally a remedy that works in real life, according to every Bengali parent. My mother lives abroad, and she told me to get off of the phone while Skyping; so I cut the call and put the phone away, hoping that it would cure my cold. I need not elaborate on how afterwards she unleashed hell on me for following her own instructions.

My favourite Bangla short story is called Beche Thako Shordikashi. Syed Mujtaba Ali famously said in that story that taking medicine cures your cold in seven days, while not taking any will cure it in a week. After my recent traumatic experience with the common cold, I can once again vouch that this statement is 100% true. Meanwhile, all you can do to get some comfort is praying, a method which is also suggested by relatives far and wide.

Aanila Kishwar Tarannum started hating on everything the moment she realised why her parents put so many A's in her name: because they knew her transcript would be devoid of any vowels. Find out about her relentless rants at aanila.tarannum@gmail.com