Nature Divine – The Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu

Nature Divine – The Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu

The track wound up and through an assortment of rocks that gleamed with the moistness left behind by the passing shower, even as I gingerly made my way up the maze, often leaping across whirling puddles formed by the gurgling brook that weaved down through the labyrinth.

I paused at a whirlpool of foaming spring water that teasingly invited me to step into it; taking a deep breath I stretched myself to cross it when a movement in the undergrowth stopped me in my tracks, in a desperate attempt to complete my lunge, I clumsily stepped right into the middle of the pool and lost my balance and found myself floundering in knee deep water, after a minute of frantic clambering, I found myself on firm ground soaked to the skin and chilled to my bones for the water I guessed, was a fraction above the freezing point, it was at this point that the rustling in the bushes increased, startled, I took a step back, nearly toppling into the foam again when a riot of colors broke into the open, the beaked plumage, I deduced was a brilliant specimen of the jungle fowl, it took one look at the shivering form in front of it, shrieked in fright and spread its fascinating collection of colors and disappeared into the foliage above, I could hear its shrieking, warning the feathered and furred residents of my presence.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, could have prepared me for the onslaught of sheer beauty that hit me at the summit. I stumbled into the clearing at the top and clutched at the overhanging vine to steady myself and looked up, the moment froze into eternity. I drank greedily from the splendor of nature, the ground ahead of me dropped straight down into the depths of time, somewhere in its endless descent the mountain stretched out lazily into rolling expanses of grass caressed by streams that eased into the forests to emerge as the blue bodied river which, incessantly flirted with its golden banks as it flowed away into the misty morning.

Manohar Halan