In a fictional account set in the near future, a Badaga woman finds her way back home to the forest of her dreams in the Nilgiri Mountains of South India.
WORDS Monisha Raman | IMAGES Sindha Joghee
“We have honored the past and we have not blindly adopted the new.”
— Badaga proverb

Every peak has a story. A view among the several peaks of the Nilgiri Mountains that are considered sacred by the native people.
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As the electric bus trudged along the narrow ghat (mountain pass), Megha looked through the glass panes. The road spiraled up the hill like an enormous coiling serpent. For the hundredth time or more, she questioned her own impulsive decision to make this eight-thousand-mile journey across continents in search of something she wasn’t even sure about. She had cried over a lost love and knew the weight of longing. But this hankering to find something she wasn’t sure about, the desire for a mountain she thought she was entitled to by birth, was heavier to carry and more perplexing than love. Yet, like gravity, an unseen force had pulled her to the Nilgiri Mountains in South India, her thirty-year-old skin and hair still smelling of salt after the long journey on sea from New York.
Seated next to her, Abhimanyu, her local guide, explained that the tall mountains devoid of vegetation are a part of the Western Ghats, a mountain range that was formed 150 million years ago and for much of its long life was covered by dense tropical montane forests, with grasslands at the peak and many streams and rivulets running across its length and breath. An image flashed through her mind of herself wrapping her grandmother’s cotton sari around her six-year-old body, with the edges falling over her dainty shoulders all the way to the wooden floor of her childhood bedroom. Coming out of her reverie, Megha scanned the length of the mountain chain. The peaks resembled women standing upright, holding hands to safeguard the little patches of clothing on them. Abhimanyu pointed to the brown marks on the hills: remnants of recent landslides.
Setting foot for the first time in the land of her ancestors, she felt it again — a force of suction that drew her in.
As evidence of human habitation came into sight further uphill, she felt the weight of a distant rock up the mountain pressing on her chest, as if her lungs had absorbed all the moisture from the mist now blocking her view outside the bus. She was a rationalist, a borderline nihilist who as a child had giggled endlessly as her grandmother told her stories of spirits who guarded the mountains. Now, setting foot for the first time in the land of her ancestors, the one she only knew, if all too well, from her childhood stories, she felt it again — that inexplicable emotion, a sudden heaviness, a force of suction that drew her in. She tried to dismiss it as travel fatigue.

Elderly Badaga women and a little girl dressed in traditional attire — not a common sight anymore.
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Silver oak trees.
Closer to Coonoor, the hill station that was her destination, Megha again questioned her sanity for planning this trip that had wiped out her savings, solely driven by a recurring dream. Grandma had appeared in those dreams, each time dressed differently — in saris, salwar suits, trousers like Megha had always seen her in, and sometimes clad in a white cloth around her petite body like the Badaga (Baduga) women in twentieth-century pictures, her slender feet stained red from the leaves that formed a carpet on the floor. The location was always the same, lush forests with many trees she did not recognize. In all of those dreams, she saw several trees but remembered only one particular tree on a small mound. With a dainty trunk and contorted branches that formed strange angles like a misshapen umbrella, the tree had a generous sprinkling of red leaves amid its green foliage. It was the red that was etched deep in her memory — the red of a lily beetle, the red of fiery sunsets.
After the check-in formalities in the only decent hotel in town, she took a walk around Coonoor. Birch trees grew out of old colonial structures. The once well-maintained parks were partly covered with lantana weeds with their explosions of pink and a faint scent of diluted sulfuric acid. The sturdy branches of an old oak tree growing inside the park were visible from the road. She recalled Grandma recounting her walk to school across a famous park built during colonial times. Could it be the same park? Her stomach churned as that realization dawned on her.
Megha spent the evening walking along the deserted roads with battered asphalt, most of it eroded. “Eroded” — one recurring word that came up in her library searches on this mountain range. Many million years ago, a subcontinent split, and a plateau in northern India was gnawed by natural forces and gradually formed the mountains that Megha was in the midst of now. A mountain range that according to her grandma was sentient, one that had endured human folly for many years and had stayed resilient through it all — the one she had dreamed of visiting several times as a child, the one that communicated to her through bizarre visions and strange voices.
*****
“People of various races arrived through the gates of history,” Abhimanyu explained to her in an empty diner after her walk. “All along the natives endured, until survival became a challenge.” Megha recalled her grandparents’ stories — her ancestors, the agrarians who fed all the other communities in the hills, the gods that spoke, the rituals where they let milk overflow from pots at the peaks, the lush sacred forests that nobody ventured into except for the annual puja (worship). The utopian fantasy land of her imagination was so much better than what her eyes were witnessing that evening!
As they discussed vegetation and history over their meal, Megha wanted to tell Abhimanyu that she was here in search of a specific tree, a particular forest, or perhaps many forests, with spiritual power — but she stayed quiet. The very juxtaposition of “spiritual” and “forest” sounded absurd to her mind, and she couldn’t tell him that her only clue to finding the forest was the tree with red leaves.
That night she dreamed of the red-carpeted floor of a forest, a blood-red stream in the vicinity, and blue peaks of the mountains melting into the sky.
Awakening from the dream, she quickly sketched that vision in her digital notebook and recalled the recurring dream that had made her plan this journey on a whim, without enough research. In those dreams, Grandma disappeared into a thick grove of trees big and small, some magnificent with branches spread wide and roots on the surface of the ground. A couple of the same distorted trees with red foliage whispered a clue in her ears. She never found Grandma in those dreams, but she partly remembered the words that sounded like an incomplete riddle. Every time the trees whispered,
In the hill of honeycombs, dive down deep,
The babble of silver water marches down east,
Follow the four stone sisters who peek at the peak
There on the slopes of the valley, they stand, the mystic red women of yore.
Why had this dream occurred repeatedly? Why did the trees whisper the same rhyme each time? Why should she find that forest? What would happen once she found it? Why was she called here? She glanced outside, and in the early hour of the twilight the peak overlooking her window appeared blue, the same blue she had just depicted.

The shola forest canopy’s varying colors make it unique.
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*****
After a week of sifting through libraries and archives, this is what Megha understood: the very term “forest” has no definite meaning here. The native communities had their sacred groves that may or may not be recognized as forests in the state records, while many forests marked as such by the government were ones that had been planted by the colonists. The British saw grasslands as wasteland and planted eucalyptus, wattles, and pines and reserved those regions as forests. Subsequent governments diligently continued that practice. Only a few of the local communities’ sacred groves, rich with native species, were labeled as reserves by the government and received protection. Several others had no record of their existence. Was this why she was here? To find the revered forests with no trace?
The native communities had their sacred groves that may or may not be recognized as forests in the state records.
Her knowledge of ecology told her that the loss of native habitat was the reason for successive natural disasters that had ravaged this mountain range — the reason why only traces of flora, fauna, and people were found there now. Megha looked through the photographs of some of the forests and trees: none matched the image of the tree that appeared in her dream.

Tea plantations have wiped out the rich forest cover. Photo: Jagdish Joghee
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*****
Another week of aimless loitering passed by, and Megha didn’t get any leads to the native forests or the tree that appeared in her dreams. At the dinner table, she appeared visibly dejected. The hotel manager heard her out and suggested visiting a private collector.
“You never know what stories these old objects may hold,” the manager said. He proceeded to make an appointment for her and Abhimanyu.
The collector’s fancy house had elements of “green” architecture, yet looked forlorn. On the second day of digging through his books, documents, and photographs, Abhimanyu found a damaged postcard of a mountain peak shot from the valley. The faded photograph with a pristine image had no description, but the hill, shaped like a tent, had four small peaks that were not very distinct, almost like the knuckles on her hand. Below the photograph was a sentence that read, “The most blissful site that my feet have felt.”
Could this be the four stone sisters who peek at the peak?
The enthusiastic collector confessed that he could only guess the name of the place. Over a hot cup of black coffee, he told them about a scholar living alone with a vast selection of old books and documentary material.
“More than the books in his library, it is his memory and well-versed intellect that might come to your aid. I am sure you’ll be able to find some clues when you meet with him,” the collector pointed out. He was more than willing to help. “But,” he warned, “this scholar, who recently changed his original name to Joghee, after his granddad, is skeptical of outsiders. He does not share information easily.”
“But she is partly Badaga,” Abhimanyu intervened.
“I know. But she is half French, too, and let’s not forget her Telugu granddad. He doesn’t trust easily. I will send word and arrange for a meeting. We’ll see.”

Left: Badaga women gathering at a festival. Right: Badaga men in traditional attire.
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That night, Megha dreamed of some trees she had seen in a photograph earlier in the day, such as the magnolia, bishop wood, and cluster fig. In her dream, each tree produced a note of music she thought she was familiar with, and the resulting tune, which sounded like it emerged from the pit of an old woman’s stomach, nudged her awake.
“The land knows everything.”
*****
Three days later, along with Abhimanyu, Megha slogged uphill on foot across a narrow slippery path for thirty minutes to reach the scholar’s house. The scholar, who looked to be in his seventies, was seated on a rope chair on his porch and was expecting them. While waiting for Abhimanyu to make introductions at the door, Megha heard the tune from her dream again. It started as a soft hum, a melodic tune, with short pauses between notes. The decibel slightly increased as she peered into his red brick house to catch a glimpse of the blurred painting of a tree at the far end of the parlor. With her eyes fixed on the painting, Megha walked inside the house without an invitation to do so, as the scholar stood at the door. She tried to repress the lump in her throat. Why did that tune feel like a part of her being? Why was her throat choked with elation as if she had discovered the umbilical cord that connected her to this land? Megha looked around to find the room empty. The scholar remained at the door staring at her, along with Abhimanyu, whose jaw had dropped.

A Badaga couple in their traditional home.
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She stepped backward and the music faded. With each step toward the painting, the music, which sounded partly like a lullaby, got louder — a soft hum, perhaps a mother’s cry for help, or maybe a tune denoting a mother’s delight. She knew this melody; she understood its notes like one knows one’s own skin or hair. The music was her. As she stood one foot away from the painting, the tune was now distinct, clearer, with notes overlapping. The tree of her dreams — stout, dainty trunk, oddly twisted branches, red leaves at the edges and more red leaves on the floor — stood there with a majestic posture, framed in a two-foot canvas. Below its trunk were the words “Nilgiri Rudraksha” written in a cursive hand.

Badaga men venerating the holy Nilgirirudraksha tree (Eleocarpus variabilis).
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The scholar walked in with a limp and, without any formal introductions, began to talk. “Welcome home, child. We have waited for you a long time. I know the forest you are looking for. Don’t be surprised. The land knows everything. You were called for a duty. You are in the right place at the right time.”

Badaga girls in traditional attire, looking in awe at their ancestral territory of life.
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Monisha Raman belongs to the Badaga community of the Nilgiris district in Tamil Nadu, India. Her essays and short stories have been published in various magazines in Asia and internationally, including Where the Leaves Fall, New Asian Writing, Kitaab Singapore, Planted Journal, Spacebar Magazine, The Punch Magazine, Indian Ruminations, Asian Extracts, and more. Follow Monisha on linktr.ee/Monisharaman