I have been a visitor to Ooty during summer over the years. My last visit was seven years ago after which there was a long gap due to family issues. What a change I see in Ooty as in other summer hill resorts. Forty years ago, it was only the elite who visited Ooty. Many of them like the Nizam of Hyderabad, his prime minister Salar Jung and the various samsthanam poten-tates had their own houses. These were mostly British style villas built in the style of big inspection bungalows with galvanised iron roofs topped by attractive red tiles. They had lovely gardens and long driveways with discreet servants’ quarters tucked away behind the main house. Summer was the only season in Ooty.
The Ooty lake, as with the other lakes, on surface looked clean and beautiful. The mid-nineties economic boom in India saw the newly emerging middle class with money in its hands. Ooty for south Indians was the Ooty as depicted in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam films.
The middle class now yearned to follow their stars and thus started the hill station boom. Summer is not sufficient for the crowds so the boom continues well into winter too.
While aesthetics in the hill has undoubtedly suffered with the accompanying trash of plastic water bottles, empty snack packs and the like, the levelling of classes is more than welcome. I watched a 60 something dominant caste Tamil lady with diamonds in her ears and nose and her husband wearing cargoes, sniffing disdainfully at the hoi polloi around her at the Pykara boathouse. What fun to see the boisterous family of someone, clearly a clerk, crowding over her neck to watch the boats.
Another family, all of them in burkhas accompanied by one solitary male and several children, traipsing around. Honeymooners, he in drainpipes, she in the ubiquitous store-bought salwar kameez, college students in groups on a budget holiday.... what a change is seen public spaces in hill stations ! The Ooty dog show was once the preserve of the elite. I couldn’t find a single gilt-edged crowd face there today. No longer are the rich crowding to Ooty for summer. No longer are the films being shot in Ooty. The rich are now flocking to New Zealand and Greenland for summer as are the film-makers. Hopefully, twenty years from now, the aam janata will follow them there.
