TOBA TEK SINGH: The jujube fruit, popularly known as berries, from Khanpur village (Chak 393-JB) is as sweet as a candy.

From mid February to mid April, vendors in bazaars and streets are seen selling the fruit with slogans: “Khanpur ke bair le lo (buy the berries from Khanpur)”.

The village has a handful bunches of jujube trees. The deliciousness of jujube of Khanpur is so much known that vendors who sell jujube of other areas, also shout “Khanpur ke bair le lo”.

Up to 200 jujube trees are there around the shrine of Pir Syed Ghulam Rasool Shah. Also, hundreds of acres of the village have jujube trees.

The great grandson of Pir Hazrat Syed Ghulam Rasool Shah, Syed Fakhar Husain Shah (also village councillor), told Dawn the ripe, sweet berries was the gift of his great grandfather who died 121 years ago. The saint, he said, had planted a tree by himself and the very tree planted by the saint is also there at the shrine and presently its branches are touching the ground.

He said countless people had taken root stocks from the old tree and grafted the same to other trees in other areas. He said those trees had also yielded sweet and ripe fruits. He said even unripe fruit of grafted trees were also extraordinary sweet.

The fruit is sold at Rs50 to 60 per kilo but during the annual urs at the shrine from March 8 to 21, its price rises to Rs100 per kg.

Asghar Ali, a berries vendor, told Dawn that fruit traders bought a berries tree at Rs5,000 to 6,000 which contained more than 1,000 kilo fruit.

Published in Dawn, April 9th, 2017