Ooty Revisiting

Botanical Garden
Courtesy Wikipedia

                                         

       The Nilgiri hills in the south of India boasts of many hill stations, Ooty being the queen of them. It is but natural that tourists hound this place as an escape from the nearby cities. During our one year stay in Wellington ( not the one in New Zealand), we sneaked out to explore Ooty and other interesting places nearby. Like any other tourist's first visit we paddled round the Ooty lake, savoured some homemade chocolates and pattiseries, inhaled the the fragrance of pine and eucalyptus trees ( snuffed by the urban development), climbed up to Dodabetta peak and the rest and sat around the Pykara Lake. 

      There are two interesting things we found in Ooty apart frm many others, not including the chocolates. The first was the Toda village in the upper part of the famed Botaniacal Garden and the Thread Garden opposite the Ooty lake. The Todas are the original people of Udhagamandalam ( anglicised into Ootacamund  by the British and later shortened to Ooty). The Todas are a pastoral community and strictly vegetarian thriving on dairy products. Their homes are barrel shaped huts with low entrance to keep away wild animals. Their embroidery is a unique combination of red and black threads on white or off white cottons. 

                                                   

Toda Embroidery

      The Botanical Garden lived up to it's fame and we were not disappointed with the   Italian section, the collection of numerous trees and plants and the collection of orchids. But the other garden, the Thread Garden proved to be a surprise. It took Antony Jacob and his team 12 years to complete this project of creating flowers, plants and lawns out of thread without the use of any needle or machinery. The major materials used were different shades of embroidery thread, canvas and wire. Don't go expecting a real garden for the specimens are placed in pots and vases. It is interesting to note the effort made to come as close as possible to the Nature's beauty. 

    If you have the time try exploring the nearby places of Ooty. The first one that comes to mind is the Beulah Farm between Coonoor and Kotagiri. It used to be a delight for us to visit Eapen Jacob's cottage full of his bottled 'nectars' which he so passionately made. Beulah Farm is synonymous with wine made without yeast from all possible fruits and peels, around 80 varieties which he lets you taste. Not the eighty of them. Maybe 15 of them that leaves you feeling quite 'happy' when you walk out clutching the bottles. So relaxed were we that unknown to us our two year old daughter was also sipping from our glasses letting all my efforts of toilet training go down the drain. I could go on and on about Beulah Farm, the wines, the exotic herbs and  the preserves but I need to remind myself that this is a blog post. If you are there and if the farm is still around do get yourself the rose wine.

                                             

    If you are travelling from Bangalore brace yourself for the 36 hairpin bends on the short route that takes you to Ooty. We took this road on a trip to the Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary in our good old Maruti 800 and lived to tell the tale. By the time we were 30/36 lesser, I lost all my speaking abilities and the throat went dry applying the brakes and the clutch in my seat while my husband was driving. It is a journey we both are proud of including our good old Maruti 800. 

   There are many nearby places that are famous for fine embroidery on home linen and fabrics like Ketty and Coonoor. Since this was a trip we made long ago The snaps are stashed away in an album hard to find. I have taken the liberty of borrowing some from the internet but that shouldn't take the charm away from this place.


This post was written for A to Z Challenge.  

   

Smelly To Smiley - Triggerring Happy Memories

   The olfactory senses have come in very handy to sniff out smelly socks long forgotten in an old pair of shoes or cornering an errant teenage brother in the thralls of stolen puffs with a hurriedly thrown, still smoking, butt out of the window. But the most pleasurable of all outcomes of this nasal ability is when  hit by the right button, it triggers off memories dispersing a  fission of emotions in its wake.

    There I was one summer evening, admiring the hybrid periwinkles growing in my balcony when suddenly I transformed into Mungerilal of "Mungerilal Ke Haseen Sapne" fame and lost myself in a reverie.

  They were  'thatha' and 'paathi' on whose porch the 'rangoon creeper' flourished embracing the column and rising to the first floor laden with pink, white and maroon blossoms scenting the summer evening with a heady fragrance. To me they were 'koka' and 'aita' in remembrance of my grandparents whom I had left behind in Assam when my father was posted to then Madras.

    It was in the early eighties when TV was new for  an eight year old me. There were none where I came from and we didn't own a Dyanora set yet. Weekends were movie days with one in Tamil and one in Hindi.On these days I parked myself right at the top of the stairs leading to our first floor home.

  'He can't miss me if I stand here. And I can see him if he enters or exits his house.' I craned my neck.
 'God! It's already six! Where is he?' 
And why was I parked there with so much desperation? Simply, to force an invitation from koka.
"Aajao, picture shuru hone wala hai!"
    I rushed,  the moment he said the first word - down the stairs, out of our gate, in through theirs, sandals hurriedly slipped out careful not to disturb the 'kolam' and plonked myself  all in one piece right in front of Dyanora dear, just in time to see the revolving discs of Doordarshan logo. If I had run with as much focus in my 'lemon and spoon race' in school I would have been a champion.

    MGR or NTR regaled me fighting the baddies and outwitting the sorcerer with swords and chants in torch lit caves, sneering under their clipped moustaches while the damsels in distress like Jayalalitha (Amma in distress?) pranced around. They wooed their love interest in the idyllic indoor sets with flowery trees that suspiciously looked like cherry blossoms. I still remember a song from those days.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=12W01YmPf7I

    Come to think of it now, what a wonderful way to get an Assamese child acquainted with the Tamil language and grow into an interpreter of sorts for all the Hindi ammas residing in the building especially when it came to conversing with the maid! But why pray, was I going back to Madras of my childhood now, in  a Delhi apartment in 2013? I looked around the nearby buildings and down at the entrance gate. There nestled near the neem tree was the 'rangoon creeper'  weighed down with the pretty blossoms releasing the heady fragrance into the evening sky.

                                                      
                                                               Rangoon Creeper
                                                                     Courtesy
                                           http://www.flowersofindia.net/catalog/vine.html

     I came into the house with a smile playing on my lips only to be assaulted with a stench near the kitchen sink. The culprit was my daughter's two days old smelly lunch box which she hurriedly fished out of her bag and kept in the sink. I rushed to get my Ambipure Lavender Vanilla & Comfort, a gift from the Ambipure Indiblogger's Meet at Hyatt Regency New Delhi.  A spray of that and my kitchen was back to normalcy but I found myself in Ooty!
                               

             
Those were the days when we came here  often from Defence Services Staff College in Wellington that was barely fourteen kilometres away...

   We walked along the streets  in the quiet evening with the rustling leaves and the pee-ka-boo sun  for company. Away from the hustle-bustle of the main roads, it's a delight to discover tracks amid the trees and suddenly arrive at a clearing with a pretty view spread ahead. 
 " Let's try the other bend next week-end!"I said enthusiastically.
" Yeah, provided we are not loaded with assignments," said the better half wistfully. 
" Let's go back for today."
" Hmm... Do we have the time for the Toda Village today?"
" I guess so. In that case let's head back to the main road and to the Botanical Garden."
    We got into our car and drove down to the Ooty's famed Botanical Garden, through the city. The aroma of freshly baked vanilla cakes greeted us from the bakeries along the road. It is criminal to resist the aromas of fresh chocolate muffins and vanilla cinnamon rolls. So I got off and packed some for the road. The many vanilla plantations in the Nilgiris could be the secret behind the allure of the vanilla cakes here.
   The Garden lived up to its fame with the orchids, Italian garden and whole array of blossoms. It was the Todas who made me sit and appreciate the simplicity of life and thank Him for the little things in life. With their lovely rainbow shaped huts, striking features and intricately embroidered shawls, the Todas lived life respecting nature and nurturing buffaloes.

                                           
                                          Courtesy Wikimedia Commons
                                           Attribution Pratheep P S

Todas!  I suddenly remembered an old forgotten Toda stole I picked up on the trip. Rummaging through my wardrobe, which has a habit of hiding those clothes that I want the most, I retrieved this beautiful piece which I hope to pass on to my daughters.


                                       
                                                             Toda stole


   Feeling the stole lovingly jolted me back to the dinner menu for the night. I promised my daughters chicken schnitzels for dinner, a recipe I picked on our recent trip to Germany.

                                             
                                                  Schnitzel with fries
                                              Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Standing around the counter the girls helped to coat the schnitzels in the mixture of bread crumbs and parmesan cheese. I heated the oil and as each piece went in the aroma of the frying schnitzels filled the air with the girls breaking out into excited chatter.

    " Remember that cafe near the river? The one in the main market or 'hauptmarket' should I say..." showed off my elder one.
" Do you mean the one where we had the first schnitzel?" the younger one quipped.
" Yes, our house seems to be smelling the same today. I love it!" she beamed eyeing the draining schnitzels.

                                                     Nuremberg on Pegnitz river

" Hmmm...the people were so nice to us. Ma, you did say that Germany did not tolerate outsiders" said the younger one.
" Well, Hitler did not. He forced Jews to leave the place or tortured them" I corrected her.
"Did you two notice that although the entire country was bombarded during the War, how it has risen today?" I pointed out.
" Yes, and so did Japan" added the elder one.
" I learnt something there. People can change their country if they work hard honestly."
" And it's nice to be nice to people and help them, like the time when we were lost. The German lady who didn't know English  tried to help us" said the younger one thoughtfully pursing up her lips.
" Everything is clean there and people follow the rules too!"
" I am glad you brought back some lessons."
" And we are glad you brought back this recipe! Can we have them now?" the girls jumped happily.

   It is strange how certain smells bring memories tumbling down in cascades. And it is a stranger unification of the intellect, senses and emotions when one feeling triggers off a whole lot of connected thoughts fluttering away into the lanes of nostalgia.




This post was written for 
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 This post demanded digging into memory for content. Many of the visuals would not have been possible without taking the help of
Wikipedia
Wikimedia Commons
www.youtube.com
http://www.flowersofindia.net/catalog/vine.html