Strawberry Fields Forever


Down the dusty roads and arid mountains of Haryana, one would not expect much. Sitting on the lap of the Aravalli Hills, in the National Brain Research Centre, and dreaming of strawberries, one is often left disappointed.
Once on a visit to Mahabaleshwar, I had come across strawberries growing in the wild. But Mahabaleshwar is a hill station, experiencing cool climate throughout the year, the conditions extremely conducive to the growth of strawberries. On that hill station, industry constitutes strawberries and corn, and one can buy fresh strawberries the size of Darjeeling oranges, and their products such as jam (with whole strawberries) and pulp for use in desserts, and the works.
But in an arid place like Haryana, around the Gurgaon region, and very close to the deserts of Rajasthan, one rarely expects strawberries to grow in the wild, leave alone be cultivated.
But luck it seems shone on us, those who seek this red juicy berry. On a rare outing beyond the rear borders of our institute, long rows of sprouting shrubs were discovered. On moving closer to the apparition, some workers were found packing red berries in white boxes. Undoubtedly, the ‘red’ were strawberries!
It is a miracle how these little gastronomic marvels of nature could bloom in the deserts of Manesar. I still cannot figure it out. The temperature during winter though, hovering around the single digit region, seems ideal for their growth. Why they were there, didn’t make sense. But they were there, and that itself showed that with a little out-of-the-box thinking, one could move mountains, literally.
I knew one of the four workers sorting the berries. He used to work as a carpenter at our institute. Striking a conversation with him, I realized that he has been growing strawberries there for over ten years! It is then that I realized how dumb the people at NBRC really have been, for years blind to such a phenomenon occurring in their own backyard. But for their accidental discovery by a fellow ‘inmate’, the world would have remained ignorant about the strawberry fields of Manesar.
The strawberries were destined for Orissa and Bengal, where a carton of eight boxes were to be sold for eight hundred rupees, to be transported the very next day of their plucking, by air.
Cost not important to wasteful spenders, it was the experience of walking through the strawberry fields of Manesar that really made me soft in my bones. Such experiences are always welcome among the sterile habits of a desert life, I am sure my fellow ‘inmates’ will concur.

Dwaipayan Adhya

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