Gooseberry Warriors (standard:non fiction, 288 words)
Author: Juggernaut	Added: Jul 03 2012	Views/Reads: 2591/2	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Pickles made with Indian Gooseberries are very popular prticularly in South India. To protect the berries from theives, the farmers hire Gooseberry warriors, a special group of women cut out for sentry work.

Gooseberry Warriors 

Subba Rao 

Gooseberries grow all over the world with distinctly different 

flavor depending on geographic location. Indian Gooseberry comes in 

various sizes and colors. It has a long history going back to thousands 

of years when sages used as an all-purpose cure and that was how Indian 

Gooseberry became a bellwether medicinal plant. When ripe, the berries 

turn light greenish white to yellow and taste sweet and sour with 

slight bitterness. 

Gooseberries were valued for its taste as a pickle. 

Gooseberries pickled in salty vinegar and hot sauce sells like crazy in 

Southern India. No doubt Gooseberry pickle is a big business and the 

demand for fresh Gooseberries is enormous. 

The berries hang loose in large bunches from the stem and tree 

branches like grapes. With a shake, the berries easily drop off to the 

ground, that's all it takes to harvest the fruit, but that's the 

problem also for the owners of the Gooseberry farms, it is easy to 

steal the berries just by shaking few branches and collect the fruits 

in a hurry.  During the harvest season, the farm owners hire women, a 

special kind of women cut out to do sentry work to guard the trees from 

the Gooseberry thieves. The women, foul mouthed and rowdy can rough up 

men twice their size by pulling hair and split open their mouth to 

spit. Anybody who tries to steal Gooseberries would find themselves in 

a pickle in the hands of tobacco smoking legendary Gooseberry warriors. 

Since the urban sprawl took over the old Gooseberry farms, the women 

minding the Gooseberry trees during harvest went back full time selling 

fruits and vegetables at daily markets, where no customer dare bargain 

with them fearing verbal assault. 


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