Meher-Fatma Posted: Fri Dec 11 2009, 02:26 hrs ~ www.indianexpress.com
Away from the daily humdrum, an impromptu trip high up on the hills is a time-tested formula to recharge your spirits. Take a quick weekend fix of adrenaline rush and mix it with some lazy napping at Narkanda—a hilly getaway in the Shimla district of Himachal Pradesh. About 65 km from the tourist hotspot of Shimla, this quiet town is popular for its proximity to Hatu Peak and is 16 km from Kotgarh, where Satyananda Stokes — an American visitor who went on fight in India’s freedom movement — began apple farming.
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With the advent of Summer-green, Red Gold, Tydeman and Applejune (early ripping strain of apple) aroma at Shimla and Chandigarh fruit markets, the new apple season is set to put half of Himachal Pradesh to hard work.
According to state horticulture director Gurdev Singh, early ripening varieties of apples have started reaching the markets, fetching the attention of agents across the country. He said that apple season is on and its demand is gradually rising as the new crop has arrived in the fruit markets. Usually apple season commences at the end of June and lasts till end of October in the state.
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Himachal apple prices crash due to oversupply
The prices of apples from Himachal Pradesh have crashed within weeks of their arrival in the markets due to oversupply and poor quality of the fruit, traders said here Sunday.
‘When the apple crop reached the wholesale market in the third week of June, the growers got a handsome price of Rs.800-900 for a 20-kg box of Tydeman’s Early Worcester. But within a week, the markets are flooded, leading to massive fall in the prices,’ Pratap Singh Chauhan, president of the marketing yard at the fruit and vegetable market in Bhattakuffar here, told IANS.
‘The prices came down to Rs.400 to Rs.450 a box. These days it is around Rs.350,’ he said.
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THANEDAR (HILL OF APPLES)
By ravinderjeet singh Submitted 2008-08-21 02:59:41 ~ articledirectory.com
Yes it is in Himachal state of India. The smell of blue pine and conifer trees that carpet the hills lingers in the air long after you have taken the last turn into Thanedar. Also lingering in this fruit bowl of India is reverence for an American missionary who headed to these hills in 1904, married a Himachali girl and transformed the village. The apple trees he planted in Kotgarh next door continue to reap a rich harvest even 100 years later. In fact, Samuel aka Satyanand Stokes is a family name in the entire Shimla region. The belt is replete with apple boughs. The orchards are bare and grey in winter and you have to strain hard to catch a glimpse of colour. But head here mid-April onwards and watch the trees come alive with white-green flowers that burst forth into blood-red fruit by mid-may.
THINGS TO SEE AND DO Continue reading »
In apple country, there’s nothing more exhilarating than picking your apple and eating it too. The apple blooms play hide and seek with the less exotic plums, the white almond trees and other stone fruit that are sure to rouse your passions, if fruit is your aphrodisiac.
Who Is Sundar Singh?
They called him the great Indian Seer, born in a Punjab village in 1889; of mixed Sikh and Hindu stock; his early dislike of Christianity resulted in a symbolic burning of the Bible; soon after followed a vision of Jesus Christ and he was baptized, 1905; determined to become a Christian sadhu (holy man), he traveled and preached in mountain regions from his center at Kotgarh;1918 he began to travel abroad and visited countries like Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, and China, traveled to Europe, North America, and Australia. Sundar Singh was identified as a living mystic and several books are published about him. Some people did not fully accept his accounts of his early experiences. One experience is as follows; in 1912 he returned from the Himalayan Mountains with an extraordinary account of finding a three-hundred-year old Christian hermit in a mountain cave. He called him the Maharishi of Kailas. Sundar was said to have spent some weeks in deep fellowship with him. The sadhu disappeared in 1929 while traveling to Tibet on foot with no money and circumstances of his death are unknown.
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source: http://10yearitch.com/
About 18kms northeast of Narkanda is the little village of Thanedar. Situated just off the old Hindustan-Tibet road, it is where the apple-farming revolution, if you can call it that, originated. The British had introduced cooking apples in India in the late 19th century but these were not sweet and therefore not coveted by the locals or viable for the market. Samuel Stokes, an American, who came to India in 1904 in search of spirituality stayed on to marry a local girl and made it his life’s mission to help the impoverished people of Himachal. After experimenting with other crops and failing, he decided to give apple-farming a try. He brought a sapling of the red, deliciously sweet variety of apples from Philadelphia and planted them in Thanedar. And the rest, as they say, is history 
! Today, the economy of Himachal is on the up completely because of the flourishing apple industry.
Today morning we checked out of the lovely Tethys Resort and asked for a cab to take us to Thanedar. Continue reading »
Nearly a century after it brought in an unprecedented boom in apple cultivation in Himachal Pradesh, Kotgarh in Shimla district is set to usher in yet another era of sweeping horticulture reforms. A first-of-its-kind “scientifically-managed”orchard is being nurtured at the Harmony Hall (HH) Orchard after replacing ageing apple trees with imported varieties.
A first-of-its-kind “scientifically-managed”orchard is being nurtured at the Harmony Hall (HH) Orchard after replacing ageing apple trees with imported varieties. The HH Orchard is associated with the legendary Samuel Evans Stokes who planted the state’s first commercial orchard at Kotgarh in 1914. Since then, Himachal Pradesh has been synonymous with apples, producing fruits worth Rs 1,500 crore each year.
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Saurav Bhaik says – It was a decent crowd at tanajubal this year… felt good to see people with the very same enthusiasm as it was few years back… hope to see u all at thanedhar ka mela!!
Wednesday, August 9, 2006, Chandigarh, India
Tribune, Himachal Plus
Pia-Basanti Queen
 Uma Singha |
How Uma Singha became Kotgarh’s queen, is indeed a filmi story. Her daughter-in-law Shabnam who lived in Kotgarh, had invited her film-maker friend Pradeep Sarkar there. He was looking for a suitable locale for his new music video Pia Basanti. He was enthralled with Kotgarh’s picturesque green valleys, floating clouds, mist and drizzle. And ruins of nearby Khaneti inspired him to change the story to suit the locale.
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