Since there was no place left in the Mumbai garden, he had it planted in his orchard in Gholvad. One of his finds was the Amazon rainforest tree called sapota, bearing brown fruit. He loved to collect saplings and plants from all over the world to have them transplanted there. Petit had a garden in the city of Mumbai. However, this fruit’s journey began in the late 18th century, when Seth Dinshaw Petit visited Central America. The towns of Gholvad and Dahanu are pioneers of chikoos in India, and the Gholvad Dahanu chikoo was given a geographical indication, or GI, on December 27, 2016. It is advisable to consume the fruit within 72 hours and hence transporting it effectively becomes crucial. Earlier wooden boxes were used, which were cumbersome ,and effort was required to remove their wooden lid,” explains Mancher Mubarakai, managing director of a chikoo auction house in Dahanu. “The corrugated boxes are designed in such a way that an exact number of fruit fit in a box without putting pressure on one another. Though there is a frenzy during an auction, it is an organized hustle bustle. The highest bidder gets the fruit, which is then packed in corrugated boxes and dispatched. This number is written on the display bag, which contains 30 kilograms of fruit. I stand near the collection enclosure and see the farmers from nearby farms get their fruit according to its size, big or small. The auction house is enclosed to ensure that the chikoos remain dry, especially in the rainy season, when they are prone to getting fungus if they get wet.
Curious to see a live auction, I make my way to the one close by. The chikoos are then sent to the auction house. They place the chikoos in a bag, fill it with water, hold both its ends and tilt it quickly from side to side in a synchronized movement. The filled bucket is then taken to the area where a number of women vigorously wash the fruit to remove the sap. In a few minutes, the bucket fills up and is replaced with an empty one. I decide to try my hand at it only to realize that balancing the bedni even on firm ground is a skill that I have yet to possess. She makes the process look like child’s play.
In fact, Halpati gets its name from the word farmer. It is a long stick almost 15 feet in height with mesh at its top to collect the nearly ripe fruit.ĭubla has been plucking chikoos for almost three decades and belongs to the Halpati tribe, which is into cultivation. In her hand is a bedni, which is an indigenous tool to pluck chikoos. Behind her, there is a bucket to drop the fruit once she collects them. Anita Dubla is standing on a thick branch of a chikoo tree in the town of Dahanu, in the state of Maharashtra in India.
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