Rooh Afza, a popular rose-flavoured beverage is missing out at the Indian store and the store still doesn’t have it. As it is the time of summer and most importantly the period of Ramadan, the shortage of Rooh Afza has come under the limelight.
Rooh Afza is most favourable drink for all the Muslims in the month of Ramadan as the Muslim Community mostly prefer it at the time of their holy month. In other words you can also say that it is the one of the favourite refreshing drinks of Muslims in Ramadan.
Since the holy month of Ramadan has already began this week, many of the Muslims in India have been respond to a great shock. The shortage of Rooh Afza is mounting day by day which is main in “iftar” (breaking of the fast at sunset), especially in the month of the summers.
Rooh Afza has turned out to be must for iftar as it has been become a tradition for decades to have the drink mixed with water or milk. Everybody loves breaking their fast with it.
A lady from Old Delhi said, “For the last four days, I went to at least 20 shops in our locality, but had to return empty-handed. Due to the unavailability, we were having lemon water during iftar.”
A number of distributors and wholesale dealers confirmed that there has been a shortage of Rooh Afza in the Indian market.
A dealer in Old Delhi, Aijaz Ahmad, said, “There is an over 50 percent decline in the supply of Rooh Afza while demand is at its peak.”
Another dealer in Muslim-dominated Okhla area said he sent back at least 20 consumers each day in the past week.
He said, “It’s disheartening to see customers looking for their favourite drink in the holy month of Ramadan.” He further added, “More than my business loss, it is the sadness on the customer’s face that worries me.”
The company behind this famous household brand is Hamdard Laboratories India which is a 100-year-old manufacturer of Unani medicines (Perso-Arabic traditional medicines) as well as herbal FMCG products.
In the year 1906, Hakeem Abdul Majeed made a small clinic in Old Delhi in order to create Unani medicines and titled his venture “Hamdard”, whch means empathy in Urdu.
The following year, he established Rooh Afza, a herbal mix to comfort Delhi’s people not only to stay cool for the duration of the summers, but also to help them counter heat strokes and to avoid water loss.
After India’s independence Pakistan was too created in 1947, in that duration Majeed and his two sons stayed back while on the other hand the rest of the family moved to Pakistan.
Majeed’s younger son Hakeem Mohammed Said developed Hamdard Pakistan in Karachi and started manufacturing Rooh Afza and other brands there.
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