I personally love the artwork on the packaging of Qarshi and Hamdard medicines. The art work and writing has a classic feel to it , almost like a 70s film poster. I feel like these are the last remnants of an era in which Pakistani products weren't trying to be terribly flashy or trying to be something else. The packaging always had an English side and an Urdu side.
However, I don't know what to make of the wordings on this Qarshi syrup: Khatooni is the name of the syrup and apparently, this is a specific remedy for various female diseases.
Is this a hakeemi dawa? Is it something a male hakim will prescribe to a man to take it for his wife? A mixture of potions ?
I mean, what are "various female diseases?" And, what is the specific remedy for them?
The pharmacy too is an antagonistic space for women. We already have to suffer the idiotic brown paper bagging of sanitary pads, handed discreetly over the counter. In the fast times that we live with smart phones and speaking in a dizzying mix of Urdu and English , after all, too little time to think of the right word, who has the time to be embarrassed over sanitary pads.
Medicine after all has no interest in addressing women's pain, either biological pain or psychological, because medicine has never been interested in treating women as equal or linked structural societal issues with women's mental anguish. Just simply take period pain - does science care?
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In this light, I suppose, it is a cause for celebration that a Pakistani pharmaceutical company has found specific remedy for all female diseases, whatever they may be. I hope some of the ingredients in this Khatooni concoction are:
1) vitamins to fight affects of patriarchal conditioning
2) supplements to strengthen resolve to destroy patriarchal bacteria
3) stimulants to stay awake and swat away mansplaining
4) fortified calcium and zinc to fight chronic patriarchal pain
5) muscle relaxant after performing all kinds of undivided labour
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