Enchanting serenity of Munnar

Some months ago, some of us who often take trips together decided to go to Munnar in Kerala where the Kanan Devan tea estate is sprawled over thousands of acres. The estate has these far-flung bungalows dotting the hillsides on which live planters breathing clean air and enjoying a healthy life.

We decided to stay at the estate’s iconic High Range Club. It is as colonial as these things can get and used to be the meeting point for the planters who come on motorcycles at great personal risk on those dodgy mountain roads without lights. Entertainment is so hard to come by that it is worth the risk of driving off the mountainside on the way back at midnight.

The club is tucked into a hillside. It has an 18-hole golf course attached to it. And in the middle of the course there is a full-sized cricket ground, complete with a pavilion. That makes it one up on the Wellington Gymkhana in the Nilgiris, which is also tucked into a hillside and has an attached golf course but no cricket ground in the middle. Even the Imperial Army couldn’t outdo the planters. Women are, so to speak, barred from it. It is a nasty little colonial practice which had survived the Brits. It’s full of exotic hats, though, hanging from the wall. The hats belonged to departing managers. It’s quite a sight.

Today the club wears a forlorn look because the bar, once the focal point, is now closed because of some hassle with the state government. The barman has nothing to do and helps out with ‘general duties’. These include smiling continuously.

It is breathtakingly beautiful. Secluded, green, with lake nearby it would be hard to surpass. It’s called the Kundalay Club.

Then there is the chef. He works in a surprisingly modern kitchen and as they say down there, the food is outstanding, especially the sauce they serve with the sizzler chicken. It’s a very special recipe and we managed to wheedle it out of the chef. I doubt, however, that anyone of us can make it the way they do at the club.

But enough about the club. Munnar is, yes, as beautiful as New Zealand where we had gone just a few weeks earlier. The views are just as stunning, the skies just as blue, the forests as lush and wonder of wonders, thanks to the discipline of the tea estate, even man isn’t vile. Indeed, you hardly see people outside the main town.

We drove around from 10.30 am to 6 pm for five days. The high point of all this bumping about — the roads are awful — was another stunning golf course, the like of which probably doesn’t exist. It is breathtakingly beautiful. Secluded, green, with lake nearby it would be hard to surpass. It’s called the Kundalay Club and is not open to the public, thank god.

One day we went to the Devikulam Lake. Legend has it that it was formed when Hanuman was carrying Sita and her tear drop created this gem of a lake. Emerald green waters, still, except when a slight breeze set off ripples on the mirrored waters. So clear indeed that the surroundings are reflected into it. So quiet that you don’t want to hear any human sounds to disturb the song of the birds. A log hut built in 1944 for anglers. A dated log book to maintain continuity of people visiting here.

Long live exclusivity. As Mussoorie and Shimla show there is no other way of preserving such places. Otherwise you run the risk of an entire hill collapsing, as it did in Munnar some years back. The usual thing on hill roads, it seems, is to build only two lanes which are 20 feet wide per lane. But someone decided to build four of 25 feet width each. And that did it.

And the hill came tumbling down.