Kurinji looked at the dying sea of blue, at the dust that was once a color from the dreams of gods, and she understood. The Neelakurinji was not a tourist attraction. It was not a botanical wonder. It was a covenant.
Kurinji was twelve now. She had never seen the blue. Her world was the deep, unchanging green of the tea bushes, the stern brown of the plantation manager’s bungalow, the grey of the bitumen road that snaked up from the distant town of Adimali. The plantation had given her father work, but it had taken the forest. The shola groves were trimmed back, the wild streams channeled into irrigation canals. The old gods were quiet. munnar neelakurinji
We remember the axes that cut the shola. We remember the fires that burned our ancestors. We remember the earth turned to tea, the water turned to poison. We have slept for twelve years, and in our sleep, we have dreamed of justice. Kurinji looked at the dying sea of blue,
“It means ‘the one who is behind.’ The one who is left behind. The British came, we went behind the hills. The tea came, we went behind the forests. The tourists came, we went behind the fences. But the Neelakurinji … it never leaves us. It remembers.” It was a covenant