Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Photo Feature: A Nilgiris montage

The Nilgiris: a deeply personal montage All pictures by SHEILA KUMAR except where otherwise mentioned.  All images are subject to copyright.                                                                    …

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Travel: Coonoor, The Nilgiris

  This extract is from Outlook Getaways. COONOOR In the shade of Dodda Betta By Sheila Kumar While just about every hamlet in the Blue Mountains vies for the title of ‘Queen of the Nilgiris’, mist-wrapped Coonoor in season, when the emerald green of the tea bushes is sharply offset by blood-red poinsettia, purple morning glory…

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Travel: The Todas of the Nilgiris

Where the buffalo roam     I am scanning his face. Hard. Like everyone who is a temporary or permanent resident of the Nilgiri hills, I have heard all about the Todas. That they are a mysterious people, that their origins, obscured by the mists of time, point variously to the Aborigines, the lost tribe…

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Travel: La Maison, Kotagiri

Misty heights LA MAISON KOTAGIRI USP: Tryst with Nature He stood at the door of the colonial villa. Some three feet from the ground, pristine white feathers plumped. This red-necked turkey gobbled at us, till our hostess Anne-Helene rushed out of the homestead, La Maison. In some trepidation, we asked if the turkey was being…

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Travel: Nilgiris Nostalgia

  Return of the native SHEILA KUMAR sings a paean to the enduring beauty of the Nilgiris, which was once her home This article should in all fairness, carry a disclaimer. I’m no wide-eyed tourist or first-time visitor to the Blue Mountains. I used to live there, some years ago, and in a life marked…

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Travel: Sim`s Park, Coonoor

Silent Sentinels Time to shine a spotlight on a special park up in the Nilgiris,  Sim`s Park in Coonoor. Sim’s Park redefines the concept of a conventional park, with as many as 1,000 species of trees contained within a sprawl of 12.14 hectares parkland. Trees as old as eternity, or almost. Trees with gnarled, split…

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