Mushrooms.

 Namaste.

We stayed overnight at the home of one of the headteachers, after visiting his school.  His house is high up on the hill overlooking Besisahar. The following morning he showed us a small enterprise, run from his home.  Mushrooms!

A small dark room attached to the house has been transformed into a mushroom farm.  Row upon row of bowl-shaped mounds lined the floor, and from many of them a forest of fungi were sprouting.

The medium on which these fungi grow is made from rice straw, crushed into a metal bowl to make a solid mass.  Presumably the spores from the mature mushrooms spread onto the new host mounds, to later produce more fruiting bodies there.

His daughter was busy that morning picking the mature fungi, which would either be sold while fresh to neighbours or dried in the sun and sold later.

We ate mushrooms picked that morning, with the daal bhat. Mito chhaa! (Tasty)

Pheri bhetaulha!