Winters bring along Singhara too, something that is truly a blessing from our Creator because it helps fight the cold. Sanghara has been given such a name since its upper covering has a lot of little spikes on it. Amongst the poor families and labourers the need for oil and butter in their bodies was fulfilled by this very fruit. Yunani Hakeems had introduced its nutritious seed centuries ago in place of the white sweet made from it earlier. Fresh Sanghara keeps you vitalised while the preserved form is used in medicines by Hakeems. Half of a quarter amount of this seed has calcium and moisture equal to that present in milk. Eating 1 quarter of its fresh and boiled seeds gives a person nutrition equal to two rotis with our stomach taking 3 to 4 hours to digest it. Young people can digest it in lesser time while elderly take longer to digest it.

Sanghara helps strengthen kidneys and increases fat on youngsters. It also decreases blood pressure and the feeling of suffocation. It strengthens gums too, while also stopping the bleeding from them. Singhara cures low metabolism; use it in quantity of 3 tolas in crushed form mixed with one quarter of milk to make a halwa with brown sugar. Use this instead of normal food day and night to cure motions and strengthening intestines. When one feels heated up, few singharas can be mashed up and mixed with yogurt, applied on the chest to help soothe this feeling.

Dry Sanghara can be mashed up with lemon juice and applied on the area having ‘Daad’. Women who have longer monthly courses should use flour of Sanghara in rotis for themselves which helps to thicken the blood and stop its excessive flow. Youngsters who face problems in urination should use flour of Sanghara equal to 2 tolay with milk in the morning.

Also in our family, to increase strength the following tablets are made and used: Two tolay of dry Sanghara, 2 tolay of ta bashir-e asli, 6 masha of white sankia, grind all these with a mortar and pestle while adding juice of 150 lemons. After two months when you see that the juice is absorbed, add 3 mashas of pure pearls, kastori, saffron, amber, kushta of gold and silver, grind again while adding 25 lemon’s juice. Make tablets of the above mixture equal to the size of a pulse grain.