A day as a green grocer in a gloomy Sikkim Village. Organic farming and Terrace cultivation in Sikkim.

It was 7 am in a Sunday morning as I reached a small gloomy village of East Sikkim bedraggled with the monsoon rain. The Lepcha village girl having a small vegetable shop in the lonely curve of a mountain was waiting for me with the morning breakfast and tea. There was a light drizzle going on since morning and after breakfast, we trekked through the wet and slippery muddy track towards the National Highway on the ridge where she has a small vegetable shop made with bamboo pillars and thatched cover to protect her from rain. Just behind the shop, there was a steep slope at an elevation of 7000 ft. above the sea level and we could see through the thin layer of dangling mist, a thread like twisted river flowing through the dark green valleys. 

The simple village life of Sikkim has always  created inquisitiveness in my heart. While marching through the isolated undulating ways with hardly any signs of population, I have seen small shops of vegetables on the road sides with the shop owning lady waiting eagerly for the rare customers passing through those lonely corridors, buying vegetables from them. I have noticed their gloomy faces with ornamented smiles as a make up over their pains of day to day life depicted by the swishing noise of a hidden stream flowing silently through the dense forest. The tweeting birds , the croaking frogs and the water droplets on the leaves are the only witness to their struggle on those lonely pathways. Therefore it was my long desire to spend a day with them to be a witness of their scuffle, to learn a lesson on how to live our lives within the periphery of such deep loneliness and bare minimum resources for years after years, yet with the smiles intact. 

While standing inside the shop with the simple and beautiful lepcha woman selling vegetables, I came to know that those were all organic vegetables cultivated with the use of organic fertilisers and home made organic pesticides made from the natural ingredients extracted from the plants. This prevents the harmful chemical effects on the consumers and this organic vegetation is a common practice in entire Sikkim. The organic vegetation builds healthy soil and thus prevents soil erosion and protect the consumers from the chemical side effects of inorganic fertilisers. I was impressed with the freshness and the colour of the vegetables shining with the rain droplets continuously leaking through the thatched roof partially shielding us from continuous shower and drizzles. Inbetween, the local pedestrians and the cars rarely passing by stopped over to load handfull of these vegetables. I was mostly an observer perceiving the buyer and the seller's behaviour and communication style. After every transaction they greeted each other with a smile signifying the existence of love and tenderness in these remote parts of the world where living life is as hard as the hanging rocks on the cliffs. But you can  sow a flower plant perhaps on the rocks and bolders with such kind of love and feelings for each other. 

It was almost noon and due to continuous wet atmosphere, I was feeling a bit more hungry than usual. The woman served with tenderness the handmade chapatis and homemade mixed pickle made of kutcha mangos and green chilly with the essence of bamboo shoot and I gobbled up the entire staff within minutes. I have never tasted such palatial chapatis with pickles before or was it that extra bit of hungriness which added that extra flavour was not a question of priority at that moment. The questions whirling in my mind were that how and where do they store the unsold vegetables and what is their daily earning on an average. The queries were quickly resolved as she told that the small vegetable sellers like her fetch vegetables from people's farm and earn profit margins of Rs. 100 to Rs.200 per day depending upon their sale. Due to cold weather conditions in Sikkim ,  the vegetables remain fresh for a certain period, otherwise the unsold vegetables are gladly taken back by the farm owners. By 2 pm, we decided to quit the place as the intense of the shower was gradually increasing and by 4 pm in the evening, these places gets darker with the rainbursting clouds accumulating everywhere.

On my way back, I stopped over a beautiful lush green terrace cultivation also commonly known as step farming. By then the rain had stopped with a pristine clear blue sky on the top. The continuos rain since last night made nature reflecting it's colour from every paddy fields and hilly flowers with the crystal clear rain water accumulated at high elevations rippling through the outlets to the step farming or terrace farming areas with a beautiful fizzling noise. Terrace farming is very popular in Sikkim due to high rainfall. The villagers store water in the reservoirs and channelize these pure and transperent water through outlets to the terraces or steps made with walls and the rainwater soaks into the shallow soil of the terraces. The walls of the terraces are built of stones, while empty spaces between the stones allow water to move down to successive terraces without eroding the soil. Water can also move from level to level near the sloping bedrock. The entire process is to store rainwater for farming throughout the year ensuring no shortage of supply of water for farming. The lush green of the picturesque terrace farms touching the blue sky with the red and yellow wild flowers tickling the white clouds creates a panorama of nature and you cannot refrain yourself from entering into the small houses located in the middle of these farms and sit for a while to gather fresh oxygen over a hot cup of tea. 

In the evening while reaching home, I have always enjoyed the scenic view of the roaring Tista with the far away city lights gradually beginning to twinkle over the pale darkness of the dusk in Sikkim. 

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