Coffee

Written by: Muhammad Anwar Andar 

Nazir and Qudsia go to the castle to visit Lalo Mama. The guard of the castle takes them inside the castle and there they visit Lalo Mama preparing a glass of coffee. Lalo Mama welcomes them and says that he wants to study and prepares a glass of coffee for himself.
Qudsia asks that what the coffee gets from. Lalo Mama opens a window about coffee.

Window:

In the window, Haroun is busy with his mobile phone. His sister, Gulalai asks about his business. Haroun replies that he was watching a video about coffee and then he turns on the video for Gulalai too.

In the video, a gardener is collecting fruits from trees. The reporter says, “Coffee gets from trees and these trees grow in hot climate and coffee was first discovered in  African countries and then transmitted to other conutries. Brazil and Ethiopia export more coffee to the world.

The coffee trees are about 3-10 meters tall but gardeners cut their branches to collect the fruits easily.

Coffee beans grow along the branch and it is not strange to see both, blossom and ripe fruit on a tree, as well as raw fruit. It takes about a year for the plant to grow after full flowering and takes about 5 years to bear fruit.

The earliest traces of coffee have been observed in the 11th century. According to the sources, an Ethiopian shepherd named Kaldi has seen that his sheep have gained extra energy after eating the leaves of a certain tree! After a while, the people of the Galla tribe first mixed the fruit of that tree with animal oils and noticed an increase in their energy. Years later, around the 12th century AD, coffee was first consumed as a beverage in Ethiopia.

After they pick up the coffee beans from the tree, then they peel them by hand or by a machine and they put them under the sun to be dried. After drying, they fry and then grind them by a grinder and get the powder of coffee, and then the coffee is ready for drinking.”
Lalo Mama closes the window.

Lalo Mama offers a glass of coffee to each of them.

Nazir says to Qudsia that as she drank a glass of coffee, she should find the correct answer to the following question, “A white room which has no door.” Qudsia replies that it is an egg.

Lalo Mama says that these kinds of questions are called riddles or puzzles, not questions. Qudsia asks about the puzzle. Lalo Mama opens another window about the puzzle.

Window:

In the window, the reporter of the castle asks some juveniles about the riddle. Wahidullah says the puzzle is the same as a question. Imran says that the puzzle and question are the same. Then the reporter shares this issue with a Pashto language professor.

The professor says, “Riddle is a type of puzzle in which a poem, prose, or question contrasts a person's name or answer by stating the signs and characteristics of a particular thing or describing that thing (without naming it). Its aim is intelligence testing or competition. The puzzle is a part of oral literature and its creator or writer is not known.

In the earlier time, grandmothers were telling puzzles to their grandsons and granddaughters and wanted them to find the correct answers of them. if they could not find, the grandmothers were telling the answers for the puzzles.”
Lalo Mama closes this window too.