Winter is that time of year when a certain natural calm descends on the country, when through the villages and small towns and large cities the splendour of a new season manifests itself. And nowhere is this beauty of life and nature more prominent than in the creativity rising from the core of the earth. Vegetables of a myriad sort, abundant and smelling of the roots that clutch, fill our yards and homes in happy abandon.Count among these vegetables of winter such delectables as beans, tomatoes, gourds, beet, turnips, radishes, carrots, cauliflowers, cabbages, cucumbers, potatoes, green papayas as well as assorted leafy vegetables --- or shaak in local parlance. Winter thus becomes a celebration, indeed a food festival of sorts.And yet winter this year is redolent of sadness. Politics has been taking its toll on the movement of goods across the country. The supply of vegetables to their usual destinations has been badly affected by the hartals and the blockades imposed by the political opposition. The result: supply has been hit, with large quantities of the vegetables going to waste and growers not getting fair prices for their produce.(thedailystar.net)ANN.Az