The road to nirvana

A last-minute booking for a much-awaited vacation from the city
led us to the oldest & smallest of the Nilgiri hill stations, Kotagiri

Taking left, from Aravenu junction seeking ‘The Door to Nirvana’

we lumbered down the last 2.5 kms on foot, starving for a banana

The Door to Nirvana hostel ;)

With the first whiff of tea, I was carried away to a virginal terrain

wrapped in amaranthine greens, rolling clouds & rhythmical rain

Gingerly peppered with old tea factories and brick roofed villages,

the path opened such soul-stirring vistas that I could walk for ages

Later in the day, I crossed a stream to hoist myself up a plantation

Only to find myself watching raptly a serpentine dragon in action

A li’l behind was Catherine, a charming double-cascaded water fall

From where arose the beasts & the butterflies, entrancing one & all

Wikipedia showed the average elevation to be around 1850 meters

But my happiness was already flying up there in the misty theatres

Sitting in the middle of the tea plantation, I tried to pen it all down

But the words slipped away with the clouds sliding past my crown

So, here’s a tip on things to do in Kotagiri; sip a lot of fragrant tea,

undo your to-do list & let your inner child take over & set you free!