The town that has its own beat: Udhagamandalam

Best wishes to the residents of the town and its broadening periphery. The best part,while there are many, is how with ease you are able to connect with anyone right from dawn to dusk. The activities/enterprise they indulge in are simple and the lives they lead are free of disgruntled voices and disparaging conduct. The best pulse can be gauged through long walks deep inside the hills and taking the state transport corporation buses that brings you face to face with their mundane existence.
Come to think of a territory that remains unflustered by the scale of personal transport that tourists bring - and that sizeable honour would in all probability go to Udhagai. The vehicular pollution is on the rise but that hasn't dismantled the spirit of residents to stay rooted to the ground, with a fair sprinkling of honesty, simplicity and generosity. The features that would be hard to locate in any metropolis where the maddening rush if allowed to get better of you leaves you in a state of terminal illness. Terminal illness from which recovery is not swift and not all that simple given the willingness of some powerful hospitals in the private sector to fleece and strip you. Most of the ailments that the urban chaotic centres are saddled with - enormity of the unnerving situations paints a grave picture- have their genesis in the surroundings they work and move around and the constant clamour to get better of others when the need for such rampant retribution is none whatsoever.
For commoners like us who don't see the clamour to call themselves the rep. of all-engaging-and-yet-losing footprints of civil society, their heart and mind would always be for such towns, sprinkled with simplicity and generosity, and yet not baffled by the commotion that outsiders (from other slipping-yet-existing urban centres)bring. Commotion that outsiders are not justified by any yardstick and the commotion that only defames them. Spare such centres of peaceful coexistence from your ill thoughts and let it live a life which it has successfully lived, with no fissures whatsoever.
Best wishes to Kasthuri Paradise (Veg) restaurant in Kotagiri and to the old man probably with glasses who was serving; best wishes to the state transport corporation buses and to the men handling them; best wishes to the internet cafes and their generosity to give discounts (Genesis in particular and the some 400 metres away from municipal office); best wishes to the tea centres for the tea they served and the alert founding it unleashed; best wishes to the meals centre which served the meals and the bountiful thoughts that spawned; best wishes to Station Master of Udhagai for clearing the air on the prospective movement of train services; and best wishes to all those who cared and appeared now and then.
Best wishes to Murugan travels for ensuring smooth access-cum-travel across Udhagai.
Best wishes to the town going by the momentum it desires and let people live with their simple dreams not at the expense of your immediate neighbourhood nor at the cost of the exchequer.
Three cheers for such centres of sobriety and best wishes to Udhagamandalam.
More could be written about the town and its outpouring of affection but given the time constraint this could be managed at this point of time.