The jungle
The metaphor of a jungle seems to fit India really well: a tangled mass of life, jostling upwards. Chaotic, vibrant, dark, mysterious. After a flight and a three hour taxi ride, we had replaced the hot urban jungle of Delhi, with the cooler but equally chaotic human jungle that is Ooty. The climb itself echoed the frantic struggles of life in India. While the dark jungle stretched, impenetrable, on either side of the road, our taxi driver joined the countless other trucks, buses, jeeps and motorbikes careering around the hairpin bends, fighting for that extra few inches of road space.
The tourist season had started and Ooty was heaving. Vehicles honked their way round Charing Cross, and crowds of people flocked to the botanical gardens and the evening Tibetan market at its side: colour, noise, laughter, life.
Our second day dawned bright and clear, the oppressive thunderstorms of the night before swept away by a cooling breeze. We had decided to seek out Marlimund lake – a small reservoir 6km to the North West of Ooty. Setting off from Jo and Mark’s house just up past Modern Stores, we climbed up a short lane to the YWCA Guest House Road, and so to the main Snowdon Road. As we climbed we marvelled at the cacophony of colours on the houses clinging to Ooty’s steep slopes: violet and pink, turquoise, red, purple and blue, orange, green, yellow – a frightening assault on our aesthetic senses.
The Snowdon Road itself zigzagged upwards, past faded colonial bungalows, new air-conditioned tourist resorts, and a host of other dilapidated buildings. In typical Indian fashion, Shiva and Ganesha, Mary and Jesus sat side by side in neighbouring roadside shrines and chapels. The bustle of the city gradually gave way to a more open, gentle ambience, just as the breeze blew away the rancid dust and grime of the inevitable piles of uncleared rubbish. We looked back over the sweeping spread of the Ooty valley, and ahead to the rolling hill country, brown terraces waiting for planting with the next rotation of carrots, potatoes and leafy vegetables. Further afield patches of tea plantations shared the space with spreading forests of eucalyptus.
Reaching Marlimund, we found a small gate off the road and scrambled down to the water’s edge, enjoying a snack and admiring the beauty of some simple water lilies, their pure white flowers, just tinged with purple and a splash of yellow stamens. It was good to sit there, enjoying the cool breeze, the clear skies, and the stillness of the countryside. We managed to find a way around the lake, appreciating the soft grass under our feet and the beauty of the scene. Not a soul was in sight as we walked – just us, some cows, and the wonders of nature. Countless melodies burst forth from the surrounding natural aviary. We were hampered by the absence of a bird book or binoculars, but nevertheless identified egrets, a wagtail, and the charming red-whiskered bulbuls, their little black crests sticking up proudly as they sang. We wandered up to the head of the lake and stretching valleys of eucalyptus, before picking our way through gorse bushes and reed marshes to return on the other side. Sitting on the grass, beside the lake, we paused once more, savouring the stillness, before setting off once more to head back.
We found a little paved track just beyond Sunrise – an old colonial residence lavishly restored to something of its former glory – which brought us down to the Havelock Road, and a quiet, gentle meander back to the waiting jungle of Ooty.