Apples Cleaning and their Protection nets
All along the Shimla – Sarahan belt and at many more places in the Kinnaur Valley, during the Apple harvest period, you will find many small workshop set ups working on Apples. At these workshops apples are being cleaned up from dust and pesticides that would have settled upon them during production.
“Earlier apples were cleaned by hand, but with machinery being fastened up and I was given to understand from the people working there, that now the cleaning is more robust and at the same time it does the job of shining up the Apples too.”
When we wanted to take some photos we were not sure if we would be allowed to, considering that it’s behind the scenes kind of place. Our apprehensions were short lived when we were in fact invited to come along inside and see for ourselves the entire process.
I was given a heads ‘up by our local contact that these apples run into a few thousand rupees a box, which made me call out to the entire team to make sure no one causally picks up an apple or get tempted to start eating one.
“Apples are covered by nets to protect them from any hail storm so that the apple crop is not damaged. Check the photo below.”
When we were about to leave from there some of them picked up a few apples and they just handed them to each of us and were warmly said “Kha kar dekho” and just did not accept any money for that.
I guess a good smile, politeness and sensibility to ask for permission before you do anything in someone else’s area goes a long way.
For the record, those apples were just AWESOME, making it almost impossible to have apples now when we are back because I’ve realized here in our local markets we get the last and lowest quality ones. The best get taken up for maybe export.
Good enough a reason to go back once more. Eh?