Blooming Nilgiri Hills
A lmost every time you visit the Nilgiri Hills, you’d be left wondering where it got its name from. In any direction you care to look would be verdure as far as the eyes can see, with the occasional path of the brown hillside, mostly where it’s too steep for anything to grow. While all this would be wonderfully soothing to the eyes, there would be nothing very blue about them, unless, of course, you count in the sky above. But 2018 has been different. Once every 12 years, the hills and valleys get covered by Neelakurinji blooms- s bright blue bell-shaped flower- and this was one such year. Standing on the top of a hill covered with Neelakurinji with other other hilltops at eye level and valleys way below is the reward one gets at the end of a trek in the upper Palani Hills. Even in the year they bloom, you need a dollop of luck to get to see them. A 4x4 from Kodaikanal, where we were staying, got us to the starting point of the trek. And it was a long trudge in b