Shang Bangla (Meghalaya), Aug. 30: Around noon here, it is business as usual for brothers Synjuklang Kurbah, 25, and Listborlang Kurbah, 18 - plucking ripe pineapples from their farm and stuffing them into conical baskets. The reddish-yellow aromatic fruits are among the last stocked for the day's sale.
Below, by the road, are a "sea of them" the brothers have stocked since morning. As they wait for the pick-up vans to come from Assam, some pineapples appeared too ripe to survive the journey though.
In the absence of cold storages in the vicinity, that is a risk the duo - like many who do the same here during the harvest season - are up against. Ripe pineapples cannot be stored for more than four-five days after harvesting. " Byapari log ayega Bolero mein...aur le jayega bikri ke liye Assam... (Traders come in Bolero vans and take these to markets in Guwahati, Sonapur and Nagaon," Synjuklang said in broken Hindi, shyness writ large on his face, as this correspondent tried to dig out words from him.
Shang Bangla is about 6km from Nongpoh in Ri Bhoi district and about 35km from Guwahati. Vendors, mainly women, sit by the roadside in makeshift stalls.
Ask him about his sale, Synjuklang smiled again. "We do not sell by the roadside as there are too many of them and we get less money. The traders give us a little more - between Rs 200 and Rs 300 for 20 pineapples," he said.
But the absence of market linkage and the risk of their produce perishing are apparent and the Kurbah family - a "team" of seven siblings - hinges heavily on the pineapple season. The rest of the year, the boys have to work elsewhere to keep the home fires burning.
A few curves away, things are grimmer. Kublabi Kharshande, 60, with her one-year-old grandson Donlang couched safely on her back, sat on the verandah of her wooden hut. She has no pineapples to sell. In fact, she hasn't had any for the past couple of years.
"Wild elephants have destroyed our crop," rued Kublabi, who has grown up among the pineapple farms at Niangbari where elephants have wreaked havoc time and again.
Wistilda Marngar, 53, shared a similar tale. "Five of my plots were destroyed by elephants. My sons have been forced to drive autos and trucks," she said.
Now that is a grim picture of the state's major pineapple belt - from Umling to Umsning. It is either nothing like the Kublabis or a do-it-yourself chore like the Kurbahs.
The Ri Bhoi horticulture department has apparently played a "limited" role so far.
"While there are some cooperatives in Ri Bhoi, farmers do the selling bit themselves," said A.B. Lyngdoh, district horticulture officer at Nongpoh.
On the marauding herds, Lyngdoh said: "We have written to the district administration."
The area under pineapple cultivation for 2014-15 in Meghalaya is 11,592 hectares with a production of 124,602 tonnes. In 2013-14, the area under cultivation was 11,314 hectares with a production of 117,767 tonnes.
Ri Bhoi which alone has 4,078 hectares under pineapple cultivation, produced about 45,000 tonnes last year.
