One of the places I have the best childhood memories of is Wellington. A small cantonment area where the Defence Services Staff College is located, it is nestled in the Nilgiri Hills, about 15 minutes from Coonoor and 45 minutes away from Ooty in Tamilnadu. My dad was posted there when i was around a year old, so my existence of just a year doesn't exactly bring back a photo album of memories, but he got posted there once again when I was 6. We stayed for four years and it was the most enchanting place I've ever stayed in. I think I was just the right age to enjoy it. It was a completely safe area as most of these defence areas are and I remember dashing down the sloping roads with my friends in the dark because home was never far away and everyone knew where everyone was! I have so many memories of Wellington...the curvy road, which I used to take up to school every morning from my house at Memorial View; the small convenience store aptly named 'Needs'; the Staff College Bakery whose owner was a splitting image of Bud Spencer; the shallow valley behind the house which served as a hunting ground for fairies, as a slide for my dog (Dr. Spock) who tumbled down every other day, a hiding place for all of us during an adrenaline packed game of 'cops and robbers' and well yes, just a valley at times; the beautiful golf course which we used to walk across every day and the muddy streams where Dr Spock showed off his dog paddling skills! It was a place where I don't remember ever being bored. My father insisted on both my sister and I learning to ride horses, since he had been horseback riding since he was 5. I started with 'pony riding', where every evening at 4 o'clock there was a knock on our front door by a man with a benign, gentle eyed pony. He would lift me up onto it and take me for a 20 minute stroll where I would hold on to the pony's neck, mane, the reins or anything I could get my hands on since I was terrified that the benign pony would turn out to be rather well, not so benign! However, we never advanced beyond the lazy stroll except once or twice where the pony would break into a brisk trot and I would shriek and I think the evil man would think it rather funny! My sister being a lot older was taken to learn riding at the stables where my dad and most of the officers and their wives in Wellington went. I went along once to watch her and I think my dad tricked me into it because I was watching a magnificent gleaming black horse called Harsha being ridden by one of the instructors, or sa'abs as we called them, and I was completely spell bound by the sheer size of the horse, when before I knew it my dad had lifted me up and I was sitting with the sa'ab on Harsha! The world seemed veryyyy small from up there. After my initial melodramatic screaming I realized, "hey, this isn't so bad. I look good up here and the horse isn't dashing off anywhere so maybe this isn't as terrifying as I thought it would be". From then on I woke up every morning and went to learn riding and was actually becoming quite decent at it before a rather wild horse called Sherry ran away with me and I fell off clumsily and was totally traumatized for a while. I did go back, but stopped after a while. However, I never ceased to be fascinated by watching my dad go horseback riding and I still remember the hunts they all used to go on. I think it was once a month where they used to have a huge breakfast for all the riders and their families. I loved going to meet the over excited hound dogs and feeding all the horses lumps of sugar. All the riders used to be in their scarlet coats and breeches with their riding caps and these are images of Wellington that never leave me.
We shifted house three times while we were there and each place was great. Our second house was an old bungalow called "Aashyana" and was surrounded by an over grown forest where I was told panthers roamed, though I never actually saw any! I used to walk down the winding lanes with Dr Spock to go to the library at Staff College, or borrow a video from the rather strangely named "Woolleys"! Our neighbors had a podgy labrador named, well actually his name was Podgy, who used to squeeze through the fence into our garden and hob nob with Spock in the backyard. It was usually cold in Wellington and I remember watching John Travolta and Olivia Newton John in 'Grease' (borrowed from Wooley's of course!)while snuggling under a blanket in front of a glowing heater.
Our church was in Coonoor and we used to drive past the beautiful Wellington Gymkhana Club, which overlooked a magnificent slope of lush tea bushes. The club was the venue for a lot of the parties and get togethers and I remember sitting out on the long verandah eating greasy french fries and drinking tomato soup! WE passed by a friend's tea estate on the way to church as well where a lot of the church retreats and get togethers were held. There was a haunted house as well since there always is one in every hill station with the usual woman in chains in a white outfit scowling down at passers by!
We used to go up to Ooty quite often as well. We had friends who had a house overlooking the ooty lake where you could see visitors paddling furiously in boats and cotton candy men outlining the lake in pink. I never much cared for Ooty, since it was always raining and cold with tons of tourists and it didn't have the charm of Wellington. I used to look forward to the drive from Wellington to Ooty though, because it was a beautiful winding drive through the Nilgiri Hills and we would pass "Sleeping Beauty", these hills shaped like a sleeping woman shrouded in mist, which never failed to intrigue me!
My mother used to work at a British missionary school, called Hebron, in Ooty. We would go watch the school performances sometimes and since it was a residential school I was completely fascinated by the lives the kids led...they seemed to always have a blast. It was a beautifulllll school. Located next door to the Botanical Gardens I still remember the long wooded "driveway" up to the school building. There were flowers and charming little nooks and corners everywhere. One holiday my mom had to work so they asked her to come stay at one of the staff cottages for 3 weeks and since my dad was not there, she took my sister, Dr Spock and me with her. It was the most quaint cottage ever and we slept in bunk beds, ate sticky muffins and drank steaming hot chocolate in the morning with the most gorgeous sunshine filtering in through the windows, walked down to the swimming pool ( it was too cold to swim, but Spock looked like he would've loved to try!), played with the English teachers' kids, Susan and Stephen, read books from the library, jumped up and down on the huge trampoline in the garden and banged on the piano in the common area in the evenings. It was fantastic!
There is so much I loved about Wellington and I could ramble on and on about it. I visited again when i was in college and what made me fall in love with the place all over again was that it hadn't changed a bit. The school uniform at the convent we studied at was still the same muddy brown and beige ensemble, the nuns were still chasing the kids all over the place, and our old music teacher still remembered, or at least pretended to remember, my sister and me! 'Needs' was still catering to everyone's needs, the bakery still made the best salt and sweet cookies, the muddy springs criss crossing the golf course would look as inviting to Spock if he were there to see them, and everything seemed to have just been preserved in this time bubble! It will probably remain the most enchanting place I've ever stayed in...and I won't be surprised if someday my kids will run to the door at 4 o clock in the evening and open it to a shaggy little pony with a star on its forehead who'll take them for a stroll down winding roads that haven't changed!
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Wellington: Geography, Demographics
Wellington is located in the Nilgiris District of Tamil Nadu, approximately 80 km from Coimbatore and 14 km from the famous hill resort of Udhagamandalam (also called Ooty or Ootacamund). It is connected by road to Coimbatore via Mettupalayam, and to Bangalore via Ooty, Bandipur and Mysore . The rail link is in the form of a broad gauge train from Coimbatore to Mettupalayam, and a narrow gauge hill train from Mettupalayam to Wellington. Wellington lies at an altitude of 1880 metres above mean sea level, and is blessed with a mild and salubrious climate throughout the year. The annual temperature varies from 3° C to 30° C. The Nilgiris receive rainfall from the South West as well as the North East monsoons, from June to mid August and October to November, respectively. The annual rainfall is approximately 300 cm.
As of 2001 India census Wellington had a population of 20,220. Males constitute 54% of the population and females 46%. Wellington has an average literacy rate of 82%, higher than the national average of 59.5%: male literacy is 87%, and female literacy is 76%. In Wellington, 12% of the population is under 6 years of age.
Wellington Cantonment
Wellington is a cantonment town theRegimental Centre for the Madras Regiment. Its most famous resident is Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw
Wellington is home to The Defense Services Staff College (DSSC), a premier tri-service training establishment that imparts training to middle level officers of the three wings of the Indian Armed Forces, friendly foreign countries and various Indian Civil Service departments. The list of alumni of the DSSC at Wellington reads like a Who's Who of the armed forces and includes Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, former Fijian strongman Sitiveni Rabuka, Nigerian President Olesegun Obasanjo and former governor of the Reserve Bank of India R.N.Malhotra
the Madras Regiment
As of 2001 India census Wellington had a population of 20,220. Males constitute 54% of the population and females 46%. Wellington has an average literacy rate of 82%, higher than the national average of 59.5%: male literacy is 87%, and female literacy is 76%. In Wellington, 12% of the population is under 6 years of age.
Wellington Cantonment
Wellington is a cantonment town theRegimental Centre for the Madras Regiment. Its most famous resident is Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw
Wellington is home to The Defense Services Staff College (DSSC), a premier tri-service training establishment that imparts training to middle level officers of the three wings of the Indian Armed Forces, friendly foreign countries and various Indian Civil Service departments. The list of alumni of the DSSC at Wellington reads like a Who's Who of the armed forces and includes Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, former Fijian strongman Sitiveni Rabuka, Nigerian President Olesegun Obasanjo and former governor of the Reserve Bank of India R.N.Malhotra
the Madras Regiment
Reflections on life
R.L.H SKINNER from Devon, England, was trying to find the graves of his great-grandparents, William Gillespie and Sarah Ann Gillespie. All that Skinner knew was that they died in South India and that his great-grandfather was a conductor in the Indian Supply and Transport Corps.
One hundred and five years after their death, help came from The British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia (BACSA). Lieutenant Colonel C.T.O.A. Wright, a life member of BACSA, dug out records and located the grave of William Gillespie who is buried at the Wellington Cemetery, in the Nilgiris, in 1901. Sarah Anne is yet to be found.
Gillespie was one of the countless soldiers and their families who served in battalions garrisoned at Wellington and were buried here.
One hundred and five years after their death, help came from The British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia (BACSA). Lieutenant Colonel C.T.O.A. Wright, a life member of BACSA, dug out records and located the grave of William Gillespie who is buried at the Wellington Cemetery, in the Nilgiris, in 1901. Sarah Anne is yet to be found.
Gillespie was one of the countless soldiers and their families who served in battalions garrisoned at Wellington and were buried here.
James Cottam was buried here by his comrades from the King's Own Royal Regiment, Private Colin Craddock, William Richardson, Fusilier A.W. Potter, Arthur Jinks of the Ninth Warwickshire Regiment, Sidney Barnes of the Devonshire Regiment, Alfred Lewis from the Royal Army Service Corps and many more are like Rupert Brooke's Soldier, "... in some corner of a foreign field".
Dying young
Most of them are distressingly young. Not more than 27 or 28 years at the most. Every gravestone seems to have a story to tell. For example, October of 1918 seems to have been a sad month. A row of graves records the death of young soldiers, all of whom have died within days of one another — from the 8th Cheshire Regiment, from the Suffolk Regiment, Manchester Regiment...
Not just soldiers, even their young families seem to have succumbed to some mysterious illness. Cholera, or may be just plain homesickness. One wonders how Julia Riddle's family in far away England must have felt when they heard of her death in 1886 at the age of 27. They must have seen her off as a young bride to faraway India and now they would never see her again, nor have a chance to pray at her grave.
"The cemetery dates back to the years before the Boer Wars and World War I," says Colonel Wright, whose great-grandfather, Brigade Major C. Alford of D Troop Royal Horses, was a soldier in the British Army during the 1857 Mutiny. Many of his own ancestors including his father and grandfather lie in the Wellington Cemetery, and he will also be buried there. His grand aunt who was the first Assistant head Mistress of Lawrence School in 1865 also lies here. Colonel Wright plans to ask the school authorities to take up the upkeep of her grave.
Sad stories abound. A lot of infants are buried here, sometimes siblings from the same family. One heart-wrenching record reveals how, in 1868, Jane Catharine, daughter of George and Jane Izzard went missing and was found dead a few days later in the Shola at Wellington.
Most of the graves seem to be of young soldiers and their families who have succumbed to the hot and arduous journey to the sub-continent. Some soldiers came to Wellington, a convalescing station. While a lucky few lived to tell the tale, many didn't. (Interestingly, 26 World War II graves were exhumed and the bodies relocated to the Madras War Grave Cemetery.)
Ancient church
The Wellington cemetery was once part of a makeshift church set up in a barrack room by the army. The church was allotted its own cemetery. When that became full, Rt Reverend F. Gill, the Bishop of Madras on 5 September 1881, consecrated an adjacent plot. Then, a decision was taken to build a church for the successive British Regiments that would be cantoned at Wellington. The St. Georges's Church still stands — 121 years old. It is the largest of the four English-speaking churches in the Nilgiris affiliated to the Church of South India.
The tall red steeple is imposing. The old oak choir stalls and pulpit gleam gently with age, as do the altar rails and the lectern that were imported from England in 1887. The teakwood pews in the nave are all more than 100 years old as are the paintings of St. George, the Crucifixion and St Michael that were put up above the altar in 1892. An imposing pipe organ, also from England, was set up between 1900 and 1903. And it is played even today. Memorials — in honour of soldiers who died and were left behind by their comrades in the Wellington cemetery and elsewhere in India — dot the church.
After Independence, with the Madras Regimental Centre and the Defence Services Staff College, permanently established in Wellington, a plaque was erected in memory of those of the Madras Regiment who gave their lives during the World Wars and the subsequent battles fought by the country
Monday, October 29, 2007
“Wellington, madam! Wellington!
Liz Light
The bus stops and the driver shouts: “Wellington, madam! Wellington! Get down here.” I follow his command and the bus roars away leaving me on the roadside in the dark. There is no sign of any town, let alone one called Wellington. No wind, no harbour, no Cake Tin.
I had planned to arrive during daylight, but the bus left late and then spent two hours in a greasy mechanic’s yard on the plains, as the connection was re-established between the engine and the exhaust pipe.
An old British motorbike roars into life and slides to a halt near me. The driver is swathed in woollen shawls, his eyes barely visible. I tell him the name of my hotel and he nods to the rickshaw attached to the back. We drive on dark dirt roads that seem to lead nowhere. He doesn’t speak English and I can’t speak Tamil. I have no idea where we’re going and why there is no town and I’m terrified. Over and over I repeat to myself, “Please God, don’t let me be murdered tonight.”
At last there is light ahead and, outside my hotel, I give the auto-rickshaw driver a huge tip for not murdering me.
In the morning, I’m woken by the beautiful, full-throated sound of a man in a mosque calling the faithful to prayer. It’s a soft dawn when I open my curtains and first see Wellington, India – absolutely cute, huddled on the edge of a wide green valley far below my hilltop hotel. A stream cuts through and where it stream exits a railway line enters the valley. It curves up the eastern flank, crosses a tall viaduct and zigzags up the northern hillside.
The town, in Tamil Nadu in the southeastern corner of the Indian subcontinent, is built in a huddle along the road in the west of the valley. It looks like a painting of an old Tuscan village, with tiled roofs jigsawed together and its stone-and-mudbrick houses faded to shades of pastel where successive coats of lime-wash have been diluted by mountain weather. Tea bushes, plucked trim, cover the higher hills and form a blanket of green stretching down and squeezing the houses into place by the road.
I follow a footpath down the hill, through the station, deserted but for a herd of goats, and cross the stream where women wash laundry, beating clothes on boulders and drying them on shrubs. Elderly men, not entirely put out to pasture, cogitate while supervising small herds of cows.
An aged herder, who speaks excellent English, proves a marvellous source of information. He’s proudly retired from a supervisory position in the tea industry and explains that leaves must be taken to the factory, treated with steam, withered and oxidised before they end up in a cup. While we talk, we wander uphill behind the cows. From the top, he points out a factory in the distance beyond the carpet of tea bushes. It’s one of many in the Nilgiri Hills, where tea begins its transformation from something that looks like camellia leaves to the beverage we love.
The tea gardens are a lasting legacy of the Raj. British plantation owners sold their properties to Indian companies in the early 1940s when they saw independence’s writing on the wall. Not much changed except the nationality of the owners: the plantations are still called Glendale, Sunnybrook and Pencarrow, the managers still live in British-style cottages and speak English with plummy accents.
The next day I wait for an hour for the train to Ooty, 21km away, before someone tells me it doesn’t run on Sundays. But the wait is lovely. I sit in the sun on the grass and watch monkeys frolicking on the station roof and children playing cricket on the green near the stream. I study the wildflowers that, because we are at high altitude but in the tropics, are a strange assortment: magnolias, gladioli and daisies bloom together.
On Monday, the train arrives as scheduled. I see it puffing up the valley, belching smoke, and feel a fizz of excitement about a steam-train journey, but, alas, it’s only an old diesel engine in bad need of maintenance. The train ambles, whistling volubly, through neat tea gardens and forests, and around the edges of wide valleys with hamlets as cute as Wellington. We pull in at Lovedale and Ketty, where I could stay at the railway station retiring rooms for 30 rupees – $1.50 – per night.
Ooty has a long name – Uthagamandalam – but no one ever calls it that. Ooty is Ooty and was, in its day, the queen of the southern hill stations, where the British migrated for months to escape the heat. It was referred to as “Snooty Ooty” because big-noters went there and race day was as fancy as the Derby at Epsom. The racecourse still dominates the town and old stone cottages with yellow roses climbing over front porches give glimpses of previous prettiness.
During the return journey, the dusk settles. Mist eases up the valleys and mountain people, wrapped in shawls, wait with their goats and cows while the train crosses their homeward path. I alight in the dark and walk up the hill to the hotel, fully in love with this sweet Wellington and not even slightly afraid of being murdered.
The bus stops and the driver shouts: “Wellington, madam! Wellington! Get down here.” I follow his command and the bus roars away leaving me on the roadside in the dark. There is no sign of any town, let alone one called Wellington. No wind, no harbour, no Cake Tin.
I had planned to arrive during daylight, but the bus left late and then spent two hours in a greasy mechanic’s yard on the plains, as the connection was re-established between the engine and the exhaust pipe.
An old British motorbike roars into life and slides to a halt near me. The driver is swathed in woollen shawls, his eyes barely visible. I tell him the name of my hotel and he nods to the rickshaw attached to the back. We drive on dark dirt roads that seem to lead nowhere. He doesn’t speak English and I can’t speak Tamil. I have no idea where we’re going and why there is no town and I’m terrified. Over and over I repeat to myself, “Please God, don’t let me be murdered tonight.”
At last there is light ahead and, outside my hotel, I give the auto-rickshaw driver a huge tip for not murdering me.
In the morning, I’m woken by the beautiful, full-throated sound of a man in a mosque calling the faithful to prayer. It’s a soft dawn when I open my curtains and first see Wellington, India – absolutely cute, huddled on the edge of a wide green valley far below my hilltop hotel. A stream cuts through and where it stream exits a railway line enters the valley. It curves up the eastern flank, crosses a tall viaduct and zigzags up the northern hillside.
The town, in Tamil Nadu in the southeastern corner of the Indian subcontinent, is built in a huddle along the road in the west of the valley. It looks like a painting of an old Tuscan village, with tiled roofs jigsawed together and its stone-and-mudbrick houses faded to shades of pastel where successive coats of lime-wash have been diluted by mountain weather. Tea bushes, plucked trim, cover the higher hills and form a blanket of green stretching down and squeezing the houses into place by the road.
I follow a footpath down the hill, through the station, deserted but for a herd of goats, and cross the stream where women wash laundry, beating clothes on boulders and drying them on shrubs. Elderly men, not entirely put out to pasture, cogitate while supervising small herds of cows.
An aged herder, who speaks excellent English, proves a marvellous source of information. He’s proudly retired from a supervisory position in the tea industry and explains that leaves must be taken to the factory, treated with steam, withered and oxidised before they end up in a cup. While we talk, we wander uphill behind the cows. From the top, he points out a factory in the distance beyond the carpet of tea bushes. It’s one of many in the Nilgiri Hills, where tea begins its transformation from something that looks like camellia leaves to the beverage we love.
The tea gardens are a lasting legacy of the Raj. British plantation owners sold their properties to Indian companies in the early 1940s when they saw independence’s writing on the wall. Not much changed except the nationality of the owners: the plantations are still called Glendale, Sunnybrook and Pencarrow, the managers still live in British-style cottages and speak English with plummy accents.
The next day I wait for an hour for the train to Ooty, 21km away, before someone tells me it doesn’t run on Sundays. But the wait is lovely. I sit in the sun on the grass and watch monkeys frolicking on the station roof and children playing cricket on the green near the stream. I study the wildflowers that, because we are at high altitude but in the tropics, are a strange assortment: magnolias, gladioli and daisies bloom together.
On Monday, the train arrives as scheduled. I see it puffing up the valley, belching smoke, and feel a fizz of excitement about a steam-train journey, but, alas, it’s only an old diesel engine in bad need of maintenance. The train ambles, whistling volubly, through neat tea gardens and forests, and around the edges of wide valleys with hamlets as cute as Wellington. We pull in at Lovedale and Ketty, where I could stay at the railway station retiring rooms for 30 rupees – $1.50 – per night.
Ooty has a long name – Uthagamandalam – but no one ever calls it that. Ooty is Ooty and was, in its day, the queen of the southern hill stations, where the British migrated for months to escape the heat. It was referred to as “Snooty Ooty” because big-noters went there and race day was as fancy as the Derby at Epsom. The racecourse still dominates the town and old stone cottages with yellow roses climbing over front porches give glimpses of previous prettiness.
During the return journey, the dusk settles. Mist eases up the valleys and mountain people, wrapped in shawls, wait with their goats and cows while the train crosses their homeward path. I alight in the dark and walk up the hill to the hotel, fully in love with this sweet Wellington and not even slightly afraid of being murdered.
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