Day 56: Ooty (short for Udhagamandalam)

20 years ago, Ooty resembled an Anglo-Aussie village, with stone cottages, fenced flower gardens and tall eucalyptus stands. South India's most famous hill station hasn't survived the press for development though and its draw no longer lies in proximity of the town center. Once the summer headquarters for the Chennai government, Ooty is now a weekend destination for couples from Bangalore who hole up in hillside hotels. International tourists have only started to come for what lies nearby - the romantic vistas of the mountain road through the tea, coffee, and spice plantations, the wildlife sanctuary, jungle trekking and visits to hill tribes.

If not the surroundings, there are other appreciables. Fresh-faced school girls in silky braids looped up onto themselves with ribbons giggle arm-in-arm, packs of women in what may be simple sarees look lovely toting their market items, the streets are swept and absent of trash piles where roving goats normally partake, you can smell the fresh fruit stand and the just cut squares of fudge in the candy shop, marigold and jasmine talismans drape across truck grills, chalk blessings are drawn in the dirt, Ganesh sits in repose on the dashboards of many a taxi, stands of steamed corn in the husk entice...It is not the scrabble thrash and stank of Chennai. But even in Chennai, it is India. And India defies easy dismissal for even in its rub against western sensibilities, there is always some delightful thing to note.