Aliba: Twenty-three kilometers away from Mokokchung, in the deep valleys of Aliba village, a farmer rests under the scorching May sun. The farmer, Ronsenglemba Kichu, a 55 year old farmer, basks under the cool shade of his farmhouse, while his wife patiently sieves the fertilizers provided by the Nagaland Agriculture Department.
The cucumber plants are tended separately and they are allowed to creep up bamboo frames set up at 45˚ angles. The field looks beautiful, so does the sprouting and the ripe cucumbers.
The valley is dotted with terraced farms meant for rice cultivation; but the time for rice plantation is a few months ahead. Rongsenlemba and his wife are here cultivating the famed, soft, juicy and sweet cucumbers which locals usually call as ‘Aliba Matsü”, (Matsü is cucumber in Ao).
Rongsenlemba, while interacting with The Morung Express at his farm, disclosed that, he started cucumber cultivation way back, thirty years back. He recounted of a time when he earned Rs 70,000 selling the cucumbers by the roadside along the Mariani-Mokokchung road (the lifeline of Mokokchung and northern and eastern districts of Nagaland). He carried the cucumbers on ‘his head” (literally he was carrying the load in a bamboo basket with a harness).
Today he still earns the same amount of money for his cucumbers, thanks the huge demand in the market. “Alibe Matsü” as it is commonly known in the market, is more tender and more juicier than the common “tsumar matsü” (the cucumbers from outside Nagaland).
“If you look at how we tend to our plants, then you would sell it even for hundred rupees a piece,” says Rongsenlemba with a sense of pride. He dons a British commando hat, some thin bamboo stilts in his belts. “We have to lash the vines (of cucumber plant) with the bamboo stilts. It’s a very labourious works,” says Rongsenlemba.
Anyhow, he has 400 cucumber plants and every plant is an individual for him. The thin bamboo silts are with him for maneuvering the movement of the cucumber vines. “I have more than 2000 cucumber demands today, so I have to get busy,” says Rongsenlemba.
You might not know it, but you might be enjoying the ‘Aliba Matsü’ as you relish the rich juicy cucumbers produced in Mokokchung. But for those who produce it, it’s quite a tough call working under the scorching sun tending to vine to vine.
“I wish the government can provide me the frame (or bamboo structure) so that I can concentrate more on irrigation and tending to my plants,” says Rongsenlemba.
Summer is here, so is “Aliba Matsü”, and while you enjoy the sweet, juicy unlike ‘tsumar matsü” cucumbers in this sultry May days, remember, there are some farmers tending to the plant, vine by vine.
