24-04-2025
From UAE to India: Get a glimpse into the vanishing world of the Todas
At the dawn of time, there was man — and buffalo. The two species forged an everlasting bond that survives even today in the jewel-toned Nilgiris in South India.
The Todas, the first indigenous settlers in the Nilgiris (among the highest mountains in the Western Ghats chain), live companionably with these semi-wild bovines who hold iconic status in their community. The mighty horns of these Asiatic water buffaloes glint in the sun-soaked grasslands and gentle rolling hills as they graze. 'Without our buffaloes, we are nothing,' says our Toda guide, P. Thorthey Gooden, who takes us around Thorri village, an hour's drive from our idyllic hotel, Willow Hill in Ooty, located on a serene leafy hillock.
The Todas, at one time, were pastoralists, following their buffaloes as they grazed in search of new and more succulent grasslands. They are said to have lived under the vast blue skies of the Nilgiris for anything from 1,500 to 4,000 years. However, the winds of change are wafting across the settlements of these unique tribals and their environment that they had so carefully nurtured for centuries. Today, the Todas number around 1,500.
'Our vast grasslands have shrunk,' says Thorthey, elbowed out by pine and eucalyptus forests and luxuriant tea estates that cover the hills like a green checkerboard quilt. 'My grandfather used to say that the world had become dark,' rues Thorthey. At one time, the tribals could gaze across the glistening green grasslands and shola (indigenous forest of stunted evergreen trees) under the canopy of a cloudless sky and keep a watch over their buffalo herds. 'Today, our people live in 125 hamlets in the Nilgiris and there are 14 clans.'
Way back in time, the Todas were as much a part of the landscape as the mountains, clad in their signature white wrap-arounds with a richly embroidered shawl thrown over their shoulders. The older women would dress their hair in long ringlets that trailed over the shoulders and onto the colourful shawls embellished with motifs from nature and their mythological stories, spending long hours embroidering their shawls. And they are as comfortable in the forest as by a stream or even in the gentle patter of rain, which falls like confetti.
While the village that we explored had low-slung brick-and-mortar homes, a beehive-shaped temple with a low entrance recalled their ancient dwellings. Even today, a love for nature, 'whether a blade of grass, flower, a mountain, river…is grafted into our DNA', says Thorthey.
Indeed, their deities live in the mountains, and the people chant their name in prayer, and their stories and songs reflect their deep understanding of the world and the wisdom of the ages. By sniffing the fragrance of a flower in their munds (settlements), they can tell when the monsoons will arrive and how long the spell would last. The Thorri hilltop village commands a view of the smooth-as-silk undulating Wenlock Downs and in the distance, are low hills where trails flutter down like ribbons.
We stroll into the village and young Toda girls in ankle-length dresses and cardigans pose shyly for our cameras; their faces glow with an inner serenity. It is a village of about 20 families and about a hundred people, trying to adapt to a modern world. Many of the men have jobs in Ooty while the women embroider traditional shawls, runners, bags, and purses, which are retailed to the outside world. 'We love living amidst nature,' says Thorthey.
His forefathers followed their buffaloes and lived off the forest. Time was never of the essence nor was money. As the sun rose, they would wake up, milk their buffaloes, set them loose to graze, and herd them into a pen at night.
'In the past, the monsoons were so heavy, our buffaloes that would be left outside would have fungi growing on their horns. But not any longer,' he says. The rains are unpredictable and scanty. His ancestors would live off the forest, feasting on berries and plants that they picked in the fertile Nilgiri jungles as well as buffalo milk, butter milk and ghee. 'The Todas are vegetarians even today, which distinguishes them from other tribes who were generally hunter-gatherers,' says Ashwin PK, who owns and runs a professional advertising company in Bengaluru and is also working on a portrait series, A visual memoir of a bygone era. 'My passion is to showcase tribal cultures that are fast vanishing,' he says.
Ashwin's portraits focus on older community members whose eyes are pools of ancient wisdom and faces resembling a collage of tobacco leaves. Considering the fact that till not too long ago, a kind of barter economy existed, the world of the Todas is a happy melding of tradition and modernity.
So much so, the long-horned mountain water buffalo remains central to their religion and culture, and every task associated with them is wrapped in ritual and an aura of magic. The herds are divided into domestic and temple buffaloes. Men who look after temple buffaloes double as priests and have to observe ritual purity. The dairy-man priest who looks after the half-barrel style temples, aglow with a single lamp, remains a priest for a minimum of two months. He cannot go home during the time, but may walk in the grasslands and forests and must never step on plastic. He has to have a ritualistic purifying bath in a stream whose water he must sip from a leaf nine times.
The Todas invaded our dreams on our last night at our nine-room boutique retreat, Willow Hill.
When we woke up at the crack of dawn, the blue smudge of the Nilgiris was visible in the distance. Beyond the French windows, unspooled lush flower-embroidered lawns bordered by ancient trees. We imagined the song of the Todas wafting on the wind like a bird in flight, resonating with the secrets of the past and a way of life untouched by time.
