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The road to Munnar is lined with signboards on Neelakurinji and Nilgiri tahr. The Kerala forest department is on a double-edged drive to advertise and create awareness on the rare flower that blooms only once in 12 years. Official estimate expects 5 lakh visitors to this popular hill station this season. Forest and tourism department have joined the Idukki district administration to form task teams to manage the mega event.

Twelve years of solitude

Don Sebastian
2007-03-08 19:34:26

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resist their parents' prodding. Camera captures the fleeting flowers. At our destination, another long queue waits for the return journey. We get down from the bus and trekked the blue mountain. Rain doesn't dampen enthusiasm. Lovers disappear in the mist.

Nilgiri tahrs, however, are not so excited. The ungulates are comfortably away somewhere. A sunny day would have been more photogenic. But rain adds more charm to Neelakurinji. The flowers play hide-n-seek in the mist. Disappointed visitors crib that it is just another blue flower. Some of them are put off by the rain. We walk on. An eco-guard assures us of more splendid sights uphill.

Density of blue increases as we proceed. Then a blue-violet hill reveals itself from the mist. From mist-covered peak to the valley, a carpet of pale blue flowers. The just-another flower has transformed itself into a breathtaking sight. Ravi, an eco-guard, bars curious visitors from venturing into the flowerland. His job is to see that no harm is done to the eco-sensitive hill ranges. Plastic is his main enemy.

Ravi, who belongs to the Muthuvar tribe inhabiting the hills of Munnar and Marayur, says that his tribesmen worship the first flower. He is from Idamalaikkudi, one of the remotest tribal hamlets surrounding the national park. Each hamlet performs a ritualistic worship as the tribal chief notifies the advent of the twelve-year wonder. The flower is divine for these tribesmen.

Neelakurinji lore is associated with Murukan, the presiding deity of the mountaiscape. Murukan was born with a Kurinji braid tied to each of his 12 hands. Muthuvas believe that is the reason for the flower to bloom in 12 years. The god later married a tribal girl, Valli. The garlands were made of Neelakurinji. Classical Tamli literature tells us how the divine lovers roamed amid the blue flowers.

Kurinji as a mindscape connotes first love in Sangham literature. Poetic convention attributes different ...