In Search of My Utopia

Amongst the many hill stations in Tamil Nadu, Kodaikanal is the third most travelled to destination (and because of that, it’s relatively less crowded) after Ooty and Coonoor. This beautiful hill station is dotted with pristine lakes, thundering waterfalls and grassy hills. As you drive up, your eyes are treated to the most picturesque views of valleys that are dotted with tiny, colourful houses and acres and acres of green rolling hills. All of this makes you feel you are living inside one of those desktop screensavers that you see on your laptop—it’s just too perfect to be true.I had chosen these very hills to be my home for a whole month. Every year, my school runs a residential teacher training course on the slopes of the Himalayas to help train and create future yoga teachers in the world. Since Corona made most travel impossible, I had to settle for the hills, closer to Chennai. As a child, I had travelled to Kodaikanal, but after seeing the majestic and magnetic Himalayas and living on its slopes, I was apprehensive about how it would be to live in Kodaikanal. I looked online, scouring website after website to find a place for my TTC (teacher training course), but everything was too commercial for my liking. Places that looked posh but were in fact like fancy cages and left you feeling disconnected from nature. I wanted something earthy that would help me feel like I was part of the land, and whilst I presumed this would be easy, it was a herculean task.After a month of futile searching, I sat complaining to my mother. Her eyes lit up, and she told me of a friend who had bought a huge property in Kodaikanal for the purpose of conservation. This meant the forest would stay in its pristine condition and would not be exploited for tourism. She also said her friend had built mud cottages and a small Yoga Shala there and called the space, ‘The Base’. As the base was not meant for commercial purposes, it could accommodate only 20 people at a time..My eyes lit up. I googled 'The Base' and loved everything I read about it. It was started by a yoga teacher and his wife, who was a conservationist. They once saw the lower hills of Kodaikanal affected by a raging forest fire and decided to buy the land. They pooled all their savings and bought the place and began replanting it with native trees. As the forest grew, with it soon came the birds, the elephants and all the little creatures, including peacocks, monkeys and porcupines. They decided to lend the space only to people who taught yoga or art. I clapped my hands and ran around my home in ecstasy—I had found my utopia!We blocked the place for a month, and soon I was on my way to Kodaikanal—not the commercial streets with the plastic trinkets, the bakeries selling maida-loaded goodies and the money-minded cabbies, but to a place that was created to accord appropriate respect to Mother Earth. A place that grew herbs and had a waterfall on site to help irrigate. A place that had one cow who was looked after with so much love and care, she didn’t mind sharing her leftover milk with guests. A place that grew vegetables and fruits, which we learned to pick and cook ourselves!My 17 yogis and I made our way here for what would soon become the most transformational month of our lives..Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.Kahlil Gibran

In Search of My Utopia

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