By Lt Col Thomas Varghese (Retd) “O Valley” is an abbreviation for the name of a plantation company called “Ouchterlony Valley Estates Ltd” located at Gudalur area in the Nilgiris, producing mainly coffee, tea and cardamom, which was started by a European settler by name General James Ouchterlony who cameRead More →
By Lt Col Thomas Varghese (Retd) “Every cloud has a silver lining”, is a known phrase of hope and promise, particularly in times of adverse circumstances. Similar to that saying is “Every hill has a valley beside”, likewise every mountain carries tales, fairy tales, fables and tribal folklore. These nature’sRead More →
Seventy years ago almost to his day on December 13, 1950 a Douglas DC-3/C-47 Dakota VT-CFK of Air India crashed near Kil Kotagiri in the Nilgiris killing all 17 passengers and 4 crew. A military search party found the wreckage a whole week after the accident on Dec 19 inRead More →
Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar (1919 – 1974) was the maharaja of the Kingdom of Mysore from 1940 to 1950. He served as the governor of Mysore and Madras states from 1964 to 66. He was a connoisseur and patron of arts and music. The Mysore royal connection with Nilgiris can be said to date from 1782 when the father of OotyRead More →
Padinjarethalakal Cherian Alexander (1921–2011) was an Indian Administrative Service officer of 1948 batch who served as the Governor of Tamil Nadu from 1988 to 1990 and as the Governor of Maharashtra from 1993 to 2002. He was considered as a candidate for the post of the President of India in 2002. He was also a member of the Rajya Sabha Read More →
Air Marshal S Raghu Raghavendran (- 2020) was one of the first to join the Indian Air Force after independence and rose up to become a Air Marshall Air Marshall S. Raghavendran was a member of the small group of future fighter pilots who joined the Indian Air Force inRead More →
Albert Thomas Watson Penn (1849 – 1924) was a pioneering British photographer of Nilgiris. Penn landed in India in 1863 in Madras, soon set up shop in Ooty in 1865 and continued to shuttle between the two centers depending on the business. He probably learnt the trade from the GovernmentRead More →
C. Iyothee Thass (1845 – 1914) was a prominent Tamil anti-caste activist and a practitioner of Siddha medicine. Iyothee Thass (1845-1914) who belonged to Chennai was brought up in the English household of George Harrington in Ooty. His father worked for the Harrintons. Thass also called himself Pundit Ayodhya Dasa and Kathavarayan. Thass became a wellRead More →
Sir Chetput Pattabhiraman Ramaswami Iyer, (1879 – 1966), popularly known as Sir C. P., was an Indian lawyer, administrator and politician who served as the Advocate-General of Madras Presidency from 1920 to 1923, Law member of the Executive council of the Governor of Madras from 1923 to 1928, Law member of the Executive Council of the Viceroy of India from 1931 toRead More →
Octavio Paz Lozano (1914 – 1998) was a Mexican poet and diplomat. For his body of work, he was awarded the 1977 Jerusalem Prize, the 1981 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1982 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, and the 1990 Nobel Prize in Literature. In 1962 he was appointed the Mexican Ambassador to India. TheRead More →
Guru Nanak Dev Ji (1469-1539) is the first of the 10 Gurus and Founder of the Sikh faith. At the age of 30, Guru Nanak left home to travel and spread his message of Ik Onkar or One God and took upon himself to enlighten people of the word of the real God. He traveled widely withinRead More →
Sir Ponnambala Thiaga Rajan (1892 – 1974) was one of the prominent leaders of the Justice Party. He was briefly the Chief Minister of Madras Presidency in 1936. He was also the last President of the Justice Party. Sir P. T, as he was fondly known, attended The Leys School, Cambridge and later, Jesus College, Oxford.Read More →
Elie Reclus ( 1827-1904) was a French Ethnographer who studied what were then called Primitive Cultures. He was an anarchist. Reclus, it was said, ‘does not belong to any people in particular, but to all humanity… He belonged to all humanity firstly because of the ideas he had always preachedRead More →
Huge Francis Clarke Cleghorn, is considered as the Father of Indian Forestry. He made an important contribution to Ooty by appointing McIvor to create the Botanical Gardens. McIvor was by nature quarrelsome, assuming and financially shrewd and speculative. Yet Cleghorn appointed him over others; and quite rightly so as historyRead More →