Lush tea gardens to abundant wildlife, Nilgiris still exerts a gentle charm

Unlike most hill stations, where residents must ship in supplies from the plains, the Nilgiris is the most stylish of resorts

After defeating and killing Tipu Sultan in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War in 1799, the East India Company consolidated itself in the Deccan. From their administrative headquarters in Coimbatore, bored and sweaty British officials longingly eyed the inviting hills visible to the northwest — the Nilgiris (“blue mountains”) that Mysore had just ceded to the British. Soon, junior officials began foraying into the unexplored hills, bringing back glowing reports of teeming wildlife and “downs” in the upper reaches that were reminiscent of Scotland. In 1819, John Sullivan, the visionary Collector of Coimbatore District, led an expedition into the Nilgiris, and quickly