Art & Architecture

(That Charing cross of Ooty was modeled on its name sake in London is another enduring myth. According to the Historian David Sullivan (a direct descendant of Sullivan) cross–roads leading to Westminster at a place called Charing became Charing Cross in London.  Similarly, the flat land where the four mainRead More →

(May 8 marked the 75th anniversary of the end of Second World War. This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Elizabeth Perez of Stockport Libraries on behalf of Margaret Ledger who worked as a nurse in India in several places during the war including Gudalur and WellingtonRead More →

(Around the middle of the 1800 Ooty was so popular that it attracted people from most of the European countries. They came for missionary work, for research, for business and trade or for rest and leisure. Here are some interesting Paris links to Ooty) Around 1850s, Ooty was a happeningRead More →

(The following report is based on a Letter to the Editor in the Indian Engineering dated September 3,1904 by a local well wisher).  There was first the selection of Mettucherry for the purpose by Sir Arthur Havelock (Governor) who did so after receiving a deputation of the leading residents ofRead More →

(One more Kapoor has gone, sadly. The Kapoors have had a long association with the Nilgiri Mountains. The shooting vans of the R.K. Productions were a permanent feature on the streets of Ooty in the 1950s to 70s.) The legendary Prithivi Raj Kapoor had no occasion to visit the NilgirisRead More →

( David Lean was an Hollywood Legends giving us such epic movies likeThe Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia and  Doctor Zhivago. These movies were run to packed houses in Assembly Room. So when Lean chose to shoot some of his shots for his Passage to India inRead More →

(Ten years after independence in 1958 a classic Hollywood movie  was shot in Mudumalai and Masinagudi areas with an English actor in the lead and three Indians in the cast. ‘Harry Black and the Tiger’ was based on a famous novel  about a former British Army Major, Harry Black,  coming Read More →

(Interestingly, roads were named after British Governors in Madras before 1870 when the Governor’s Secretariat moved to Ooty for nearly eight months in a year. Since then roads were named after Governors in Ooty. Hence Wenlock, Connemara etc roads. Governor Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff had a road and a hillRead More →

(If all Badagas could dance, most Badagas can sing. But there have been only a few Balladeers. These Bards composed, improvised and entertained and educated the community about the epic songs and stories handed down over generations orally. The Bards could easily carry on their narration for hours, even throughRead More →

(Some of you may have read in school or college Lord Macaulay’s poems called Lays of Ancient Rome which recount heroic episodes from early Roman history. But not many of us know that many of these poems were written in Ooty. As Macaulay says, ‘The plan occurred to me inRead More →