They lie at the junction of the East & Western Ghats of South West India and play a critically important role in the water systems, energy & shakti of South India.
They were ancient Palaeolithic grasslands covering 20 by 35 miles of undulating hills.
Over thousands of years the tropical, evergreen forests moved up the waterways, changing to become the unique & endemic “Shola forests” rooted on rocks older than the Himalayas.
It was one of the earliest places in the world to be registered as a World Biosphere Reserve in order to protect its unique population of plants & animals.
This was the pristine & magical world that my great grandmother saw when she came up to the hills in 1824 at seven years old, - an ancient & virginal grassland sweeping across the hills & valleys.
And here I am 150 years later, peering through the ravaged face of this ancient Lady of Nilgiris trying to find the beautiful maiden that still danced here all those years ago sometimes I get glimpses tantalising, haunting.
This picture of the original hills is now cruelly shattered. Grassland is waste land isnt it? More & more people came to the hills destroying nearly 80% of the original environment by encroachment or ignorance of its value.
More than 60% of the grassland has disappeared which had acted as a great tank, taking water from the mists as well as rains & releasing it slowly through the shola tree roots all year round.
Much of it is now covered with 1000s of acres of exotic & destructive forests of eucalyptus & wattle and green deserts of tea plantations.
The thin soil layer of the hills has been extensively heavily damaged by recent chemical systems of farming.
It all seemed a good idea at the time... but now there has to be a reckoning.