This picture illustrates the hand rubbing of the flowering cannabis tops. A worker is shown rubbing the tops of the living plants in the Manali region of India. The resultant hashish is a strong product. A personal journal entry recalls running into some of this product at a coffeeshop in the Southern Dutch city of Maastricht.

...Next we asked for another hash with a good reputation. He mentioned "Charas" a hand rubbed resin from India " it is the best we carry right now." We inspected the small dark chunk, it was pliable, it seemed fresh with a strong odor. "OK" we said "how about two grams". He weighed out a sizeable chunk for us and reminded us not to eat any, as it is a raw product from India. Seems the hashish workers head out into their fields and rub the flowering tops of the plants, the resin builds up on their hands and is scraped off to make Charas. We left, excited at the prospect of smoking this Indian hashish ...AW

(pen and ink - digital color  18 x 24 cm)