The Ó Súilleabháin Clann of Munster

January 8, 1819, Dimbatty Valley. Sitting in a valley kissed by the clouds, Collector of Coimbatore, John Sullivan, 31, wrote to Sir Thomas Munro, Governor of Madras: “My dear Colonel, I have been in the Highlands for the last week. This is the finest country… it resembles I suppose Switzerland more than any other part of Europe… it freezes here every night, this morning we found ice in our Water chatties (clay pots).”

Nearly two centuries later, the valley still retains part of the charm that captivated Sullivan, who went on to found Ooty, the first hill station in India. On a wet June afternoon, the tea plantations and vegetable patches shimmer a bright green. In a way, they are a tribute to Sullivan. For, it was he who introduced European fruit trees, vegetables and flowers to the hills and suggested that the British cultivate tea there.

When he first trekked up the Neilgherry (as the Nilgiris were then known) with a contingent of soldiers, elephants and ponies (who were disbanded halfway), it was through dense shola-filled forests and steep cliffs. During his second visit to Dimbatty (which means soft, pillow like) valley, Sullivan set up a camp. Later, it became a two-storey structure called Pethakal bungalow, named after a sacred stone that existed there. Sullivan lived there till 1823. In the five-acre property, he experimented with cultivation of potato and other English vegetables such as cabbage, beetroot and carrot. In the 1820s, the spud finally made its appearance in Ooty.

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