It is almost summer in India and hordes of cash-rich, upwardly mobile Indians with a yen for travel (i.e. on a mission to upstage the neighbours) have already made their travel plans. Where shall we go this year? Thailand? The Maldives? Sri Lanka? China? Singapore is so 20th century. Ooty is full of, well, Indians and Goa may be for hippies but is still in India. They have to go to phoren. Only then will their noisy little jaunt to the shopping malls, casinos and fast-food outlets special­ising in fats – saturated, unsaturated and trans – count as a holiday, machaan!

I can understand the distaste that many people have for once-beautiful Ooty, but there is a lot more to the Nilgiris than its main town with its choked lake, choked roads and choked atmosphere. Coonoor is not as overlooked as it once was, thanks to burgeoning real estate prices. And more and more city people are actually aware of the existence of a sleepy little village called Kotagiri. Tour buses rip through the countryside, shattering the tranquillity and frightening the wildlife – or what’s left of it – into the next State. Commercialism, Asian-style, has turned the hills noisy. Where do you, then, go for the real experience of one of the world’s most ­precious ecosystems?

A Toda family in Kandelmund by Richard Barron, Raj Bhavan, Ooty ­(Courtesy: The Raj Bhavans of Tamil Nadu).

Let’s go back a bit to the ‘start’ of the Nilgiris as we know them. In 1819, a Collector named John Sullivan, who had numerous family connections with the East India Company in Madras, attempted to climb the ‘Neilgherries’ in the company of two men called Keys and McMahon, following the trail of J.C. Whish and N.W. Kinder­sley who are credited with the discovery of a tableland possessing a European climate. But they were certainly not the first Europeans to get there: the journal of the Archbishop of Goa, Aleixo de Menezes, reveals a very different story. It also gives the first (known) account of the Todas, in 1606.

At the Synod of Udiampurur in the State of Chichin (Cochin?), convened by the Archbishop in 1599, information came to light of a certain people in an area called Tadamala who had lapsed from their Christian faith, probably due to a lack of supporting clergy. The Archbishop sent some priests to visit and support them in their religious observances. One of the members of this tiny expedition, including Portuguese and Indian priests, was an Italian Jesuit priest called Iaocomo Fenicio who left an account of his journey. Since he was writing, or it was published, in the language of the Indian Roman Catholic Church of the day, Portuguese, he is sometimes mistaken for a Portuguese, according to sociologist Anthony Walker.

Fenicio found no lapsed Christians but he provided a remarkably non-judgemental account of the Todas and their customs. No attempts were made to convert the Todas or any other hill tribes at that time, it seems. Fenicio reports that the Todas said that “they had always lived in this area and that their fathers had come from the East”. Two hundred years later, the Swiss missionary Friedrich Metz of the Basel Missionary Society lived with them for about twenty years, but had little or no success in gaining converts. Madame Blavatsky claims that the Todas “detested” the Protestant missionaries, perhaps due to the contempt that Metz is said to have had for their customs.

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It is clear that the British were by no means the first Europeans to visit the Nilgiris. But it is true that they were the first to hit upon the idea of using the hill station as a recuperation or convalescent centre for sick or tired Europeans. That was John Sullivan’s idea, actually.

In January 1819 Sullivan explored some of the area. Returning in May with a French botanist Jean Baptiste Louis Claude Theodore Leschenault de la Tour (1773 - 1826), Sullivan was struck by the enormous improvement in the health of the Frenchman, who had been weak and exhausted on the plains. Leschenault de la Tour spent three weeks collecting samples of about 200 plant species. He must have felt he was in paradise – the Western Ghats ecosystem supports many plant and animal species found nowhere else on earth. Sadly, this treasure is under threat, like ecosystems all over the world.

Sullivan negotiated the purchase of a certain area of land from the Todas at a rupee an acre and built a small brick structure. Another was to follow soon, and the Nilgiris were now open for business.

The Sullivan Memorial and Research Centre in Kanneri­mukku village near Kotagiri (Kota being one of the hill tribes) is well worth a visit – go to www.sullivanmemorial.org for further information. The website is excellent and even offers a regular information service/newsletter via e-mail. Replies are prompt. Sullivan’s original building was located, restored and now houses the museum with a wealth of information. Director Dharma­lingam Venugopal even travelled to the UK in search of Sullivan’s grave! The centre offers assistance to scholars and casual visitors alike. Staff are obligingly on hand to answer questions and help with access to records for research.

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What else does one see in Ooty? Yes, the Botanical Gardens. But the Botanical Gardens, beautiful though they are, almost completely ignore the fabulous indigenous flora. To see that, you must go far from the madding crowds (isn’t that what a holiday is ?), travel off the main roads, in some cases get permission from local authorities to enter designated areas and take great care in the wilderness to avoid damage to the flora and fauna.

A note about these two carelessly used terms – flora and fauna – is essential. When these words are uttered, they conjure up Full HD images of rampaging lions, tigers, elephants and other impressive creatures. That there are small animals like polychaete worms, insects, molluscs, and minute flowers with an exquisite beauty does not occur to most. Frogs are the best indicators of the health of an ecosystem. If you cannot hear frogs, then they are not there because there is not enough food to support them. Or due to plenty of insecticides and other pollutants. So have a care for the animals you cannot see – they are vital to the health of our planet, just as microscopic bacteria are essential in our bowels.

The Nilgiris holds the enviable status of being the first area in India to be classified as a Biosphere Reserve – the Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve (NBR). Ecologists and biologists the world over consider this area unique and are unanimous in their support for its protection. The Government of India has done the right thing, but individual support is vital.

One individual who has thrown all he has into the preservation of the Nilgiris ecosystem and the lifestyle of the Todas is Tarun Chhabra, a dentist based in Ooty. In 2003, he and friend Ramneek Singh Pannu created the Ethkwhely­nawd Botanical Refuge (EBR), a “unique ethno-ecological centre”. It is now a not-for-profit trust. Here, native plants are allowed to flourish and introduced species are removed. Both men love the Nilgiris and were dismayed at the rampant destruction of native habitat. The word habitat, it must be understood, applies equally to animals and plants. And introduced species can be so invasive that indigenous species do not stand a chance. The EBR offers opportunities for observation and research.

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When tea-growing became successful in the Nilgiris, estates planted shade trees like Silver Oak (Grevillea robusta), black wattle (Acacia decurrens) and eucalyptus from Australia to protect the tea bushes. In the 1970s, the Nilgiris began to disappear in a series of catastrophic landslides. Deforestation by humans was not the only cause. Australian plants are water-hungry, given that they have had to develop mechanisms to survive in the world’s driest continent. Nothing will or can grow beneath a eucalyptus tree because it sucks water out of the soil and its leaves are very acidic. Wattles will crowd out anything, even in Australia. Dadap (Erythrina lithosperma), native to the Philippines and Java but naturalised in India, and the Australian Acacia decurrens have nitrogen-fixing properties. Wattle has a further use in that the bark contains an effective tanning agent. All these trees were planted extensively in the Nilgiris. If left unchecked, they will compete vigorously with native species, many of them fragile and with no defence against aggressive invaders. Nilgiri planters quickly recognised the immense thirst of eucalyptus and removed them from the tea gardens, but all these trees remain, thanks to their commercial significance. The rose-scented geranium (Perlargonium graveo­lens), introduced from South Africa, is another commercially significant plant which can become very invasive if not checked.

Initiatives like the Edhk­welynawd Botanical Refuge and the Sullivan Memorial are therefore vitally important in developing our understanding and appreciation of the region. The EBR Trust is happy to answer questions via its comprehensive website: www.ebr.org.in and the Sullivan Memorial welcomes visitors – and support.

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In the 1960s a young tea planter named Rusi Dastur was put in charge of an estate called Pascoe’s Woodlands while the English managers were on leave in the UK. “Remember, Dusty,” said Ken Collins, the General Manager of the Craigmore Land and Produce Group, “Pascoe’s gets the highest price for its tea at the London tea auction every year.”

The pressure was on. How was Dusty going to pull this off? He was the first Indian manager to be put in charge of Pascoe’s Woodlands.

“Well, you don’t sleep for three days and nights. You have to supervise every stage of the process, starting with making sure that Kamakshi plucks the perfect two leaves and a bud, and ending with putting the stencils on the packaging.”

And that is what Dusty did. For three days and three nights he stayed awake. Not a leaf missed his scrutiny, not a bit of stalk got into the factory. Imagine his feeling of achievement when he heard that his tea, the Orange Pekoe that he had sent to auction, got the highest price of all the South Indian estates for the season! A kilogram of Dusty’s OP sold for, he thinks, Rs. 12, a considerable sum in the 1960s.

We might not be in a position to grow tea and see it get the best price in a tea auction, but the satisfaction that Rusi Dastur felt can be ours too. So when you go off to the hills this year, make the trip count. Leave the CDs, the television, the Internet and the mobile phone behind. Look at our land, but not through a camera lens. Just sit on a grassy knoll and take it all in. Savour the beauty of a Nilgiri shola and be thankful for a unique treasure – then do something! The hills really are alive: let us keep them that way.

Happy holidays!