Onion storage and pomegranate farming

During our trip to Nighoj, while we were going through the villages, we saw the unique way of onion storage. Okay one thing, here in Maharashtra villages are organized in a different way from North, where the villagers live in one place and they have their farming fields outside the villages. Even 4-5 KM. far from the village also. Here in Maharashtra, you would see people make their home in or nearby their farming land. 

Now for the onion storage, villagers have made the beautiful storage rooms out of thatch, bamboo logs and iron wire. This hut kind of structure is covered from all the sides and since there would be pores all around due to the mesh created with iron wire, so we can see even from outside how the onions were stored. They would make a bunch of onions and will tie them in the mesh. 

These huts were all of rectangular shape, around 5 feet of height but of varying length. The richer the farmer, the bigger the length of the hut. Means more onion in store, means more money which ultimately means bigger house and which was evident from the most nearby house from the hut.

We stopped at one of them and clicked some pictures. The length of that storage unit was pretty much long and also the nearby house can give a run to any bungalow in metro cities.  

But one thing was sure to be bothered about. Doesn’t matter how much safe was those huts, suppose if rain comes what would happen. Those huts can bear drizzling, but heavy rain…no way. Even if we assume that owner will do some provisions like covering it with plastic, still in case of heavy rains when water gets logged, it would be very very difficult. And given the material which was stored, Onion, which starts perishing if anyone in the pile is rotten. One storage units of average length had around 50-100 quintal of onions. Loss will surely be large in case weather worsens. 

Same villages had the pomegranate farming also. Fruit was very small then. Even there were flowers in the tree. If you happen to travel in Maharashtra around September October, you can see those trees, all laden with pomegranate. Each tree will at least have 80-100 fruits. I saw this when I was visiting Shirdi during that time period. And you would find people selling fresh fruits on the roadside.

Happy Ghumakkadi  :)

Nighoj: Asia’s largest natural Potholes site

My husband once forwarded me a link for Nighoj. Then googling didn’t came with a lot of information. By that I mean like you get for every other places around Pune.

 It was nowhere in the list of “Best 20 places to visit around Pune”. Some blogs which I follow where writers vigorously write about Pune and nearby places, this place was amiss. Anyways, for us it was one way to spend a weekend not being in home, watching movies and eating all day. 

So Nighoj is some 100 KM from Pune. Nearby places which you can also visit is Mahaganpati Ashtavinayak Temple and Morachi Chincholi. 

Morachi Chincholi is kind of setup where you pay the entry fee for a day long stay which includes meal, Bullock cart ride, tractor ride and plenty of dancing peacock views. There is also the arrangements for the night stay. 

 

Though we decided to give it a miss as I found mixed review for meal and having native in a village in North India, bullock cart ride and tractor ride is not new to us. This seems more like a thing for kids. Also ours was a one day trip and going in Morachi Chincholi means go there and spend entire day.

So we started at around 8:30 AM without having breakfast. It was decided to have some fruits on the way. Once out of Pune, we bought some and concluded that nearby and less glorious places than Pune are in no way less expensive (except may be rental value).

We first went to Ashtavinayak Temple, which comes in Ranjangaon area. Mirochi Chincholi came on the way. Temple has a beautiful entrance, which you cannot miss. Also it is right on the road.

We reached the temple at around 10:30. Inside the temple premises there is a Prasad counter where one can find the Modak. The modaks here are I guess are made out of maida with the filling of coconut and sugar. I guess the actual modak is made entirely of mawa. 

Anyways we left temple premises in an hour. Exactly infront of the temple, on the other side of the road there is a small path going inward. This road will take you straight to Nighoj which is around 27 KM from there.

This 27 Km entirely will be covered inside the villages. In midway around there is super beautiful meadows on both side of the roads, stretched in multiple acres. This sight is something worth of. I mean, we have not yet been to Nighoj which also only have Potholes to be seen of. But this place is worth of driving 100 KM. Beautiful nature. 

Also it seems we were there at the right season.  There were dark clouds, but no rains. Otherwise if there had been sunshine, it would be difficult to stop there. Even if the Monsoon had arrived sometime before, the grass in meadows would have grown and this cannot be so scenic.

So after about 1 hour since we started from temple, we reached Nighoj. Now the Potholes site is very near from the road. It’s like you will cross a bridge made over Kukadi river and on the right side you can see 2 temples and lots of open space. You can park the vehicle there. Potholes are on the riverbed of the Kukadi river itself. 

We first visited the temple, which is of some local deity. One old woman in temple  told that some of the potholes are of such depths that if one starts digging, he will dig the whole night. Few children of the village have lost their lives in potholes. 

Anyways the old lady was talking in Marathi and we had to make extra efforts to get some sense out of her talking. But that didn’t seem to deter the lady. I have seen this mostly in old age people that they will keep on telling what they have, irrespective of the listener’s ability to understand the language or any other factor. 

So finally we went on the riverbed to experience those famous potholes. Those potholes are made out of very heavy flow of river water. Experts from all over the world come here every year to study the phenomenon of their formation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nighoj). 

Some of them are simple holes, yet some of them are so beautifully carved. You will wonder how many years it would have taken by the water to excavate such charming space. 

Though we were not able to see the actual depth of any of the holes as in mostly all of them water was filled and even if we can see through water, there were moss at the end and one cannot say much about it’s thickness or if there is any surface below the moss or just quicksand.

After spending around 2 hrs and having the lunch, we left for the Pune.

Happy Ghumakkadi :)