Over the last four decades, I have taken part in countless academic seminars and literary festivals. The most recent took place last month, and was held in the southern hill town of Udhagamandalam, popularly known as Ooty. Billed as a “Conference for the Nilgiris in the Nilgiris”, it sought to envision a “bioculturally sustainable future” for this beautiful and vulnerable mountain district of Tamil Nadu. The speakers included the foremost social scientists and natural scientists who have worked in the region alongside citizen-activists, entrepreneurs, teachers, and tribal elders. In terms of diversity of participants and the quality of the presentations, this was one of the most enjoyable and educative seminars I have ever attended.
I have a personal connection to the Nilgiris. My father was born in Ooty and, as adults, my parents met and fell in love in that same town. However, I was myself born and raised at the other end of the subcontinent, in the foothills of the Garhwal Himalaya. It was in the interior hills of Garhwal that I did my first piece of sustained research. I actually first visited the Nilgiris only when I was 40. However, in the past quarter of a century, I have spent…
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