Thursday, May 26, 2016

NASHIK - THE ONION STORY.

Nashik city, in Maharashtra  is synonymous with ONION CULTIVATION and Grape cultivation. ....people frequent the city to visit Sai dham at Shirdi,  Sani  temple at Sanishignapur ,  jyotirling at Trambakeshwar besides the visit to Sula Vinyard. ....but for me , who had the opportunity to visit the city several times before , the craze was to see the onion fields and how it's stored for the year round. ...During the harvesting time the prices of Onion falls to as low as 4 rs/ kg.... as one drives off on Shirdi  route...farmers are often seen selling big gunny bags of Onion at throw away prices and visitors doesn't  mind stopping by to dump their sedans and SUV cars with this onions from nashik for their homes.
Once the harvest is done , the onion farmers of Maharashtra,  with the help of labour force from Bihar, hand pick their harvest and stock them up in the wired cages built in the side of the fields....it was quite interesting to see how it is done and stored. It was for the first time I saw the way onions were being stored for the Festive seasons when it's high price in the market brings big fortune to the onion farmers....I could luckily  framed it on my camera lens, though I was very upset when I saw them sprinkling rat kill powders over it ....I argued with some one them for this...but even they r right in their thinking;they r also here to make business ...
So next time each one of us using onions in our dishes , should be careful enough to remove few layers of its skin and wash it throughly  before consuming it.......
Sharing pics of how onion is hand picked,stored and onion flowers  blooming in the fields as well the seed pods  ready to be stored for the next season. .......