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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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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.

Munnar town is in festivity. The town survives on tea and tourism. Hotel managers, taxi drivers, roadside vendors...everyone is working overtime cashing in on the first Neelakurinji season after tourism became a buzzword in Kerala. The town is brimming with people. Rooms are almost full. After all, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Neelakurinji aka Stobilanthus kunthianus is a gregarious shrub that grows at an altitude of about 1600 metres, in the mountainscape bordering Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The species is one among the 40 varieties of Kurinji found in the Western Ghats.

Sabu Thankappan and his crew are shooting a documentary on the cultural significance of the rare flower. We decide to follow the official tourist itinerary to Eravikulam National Park, where the endemic Nilgiri tahr grazes amid
Neelakurinji. The forest department runs its buses up to the park for the visitors. The queue at the entrance of the park winds endlessly. After an hour, we get on the bus.

It drizzles. Rows of tea bushes form waves in the descending white mist. A tea estate is tucked away inside the national park. Mist gathers as we go uphill. Green, black and an overwhelming white. Gireesh and Ajith wait with the camera for any hue of blue. Children sleep in the chill, only to regret the loss years later. They will tell their friends how fantastic the flowers were.

Blue ahoy! The shrub blooms in pale blue dots on either side of the road. Excited visitors point through the windows. Sleeping children ...