Misty Munnar

"Who will wake up early in a hill station and that too on a vacation?"

"Well, if you want to feel the magic of misty mountains there is no option. You have to walk up the hills before the Sun comes out of hiding."

This story recreates the magic which we experienced in Munnar tea garden early morning in March. Those not familiar with Munnar, a hill station in Kerala India, may browse our earlier story 'Munnar The Charm of Kerala'. It also takes you around some tourist spots including a Kathakali dance performance. Glimpses for you.

We had to hike up a private road owned by the tea estate close to High Range Club, where we were staying in Munnar. With no traffic, the only sound was occasional bird calls in the valley below. As we walked through the morning mist and gained height, we felt a sense of floating in the air. Remember the poem 'Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky'? Am sharing the pictures in sequence to give you the feeling of the day break and sunshine in the tea estate. Explore the hills on foot with us and let the pictures do the talking. 

KBG-65 Contest

We had used one of the pictures of morning mist at Munnar for the KBG-65 - Kaun Banega Ghumakkad on-line captions contest No. 65. 

It generated lot of interest in the readers. We received a record 50 captions from across the globe listed below.

No.	Name	Caption for KBG-65 Contest
1	Ajai Bhumri	आसमां भी झुक रहा है जमी पर, जमी की सुंदरता देखने
2	Amandeep Kaur	The fog always lifts!
3	Avinash Tiwari	Aaj main oopar aasman neeche! आज मैं ऊपर आसमाँन नीचे
4	Bharat Ladha	ज्यों ही धुंध छटेगा, नया संसार दिखेगा ।
5	Deepak Jena	Fog can cover anything, anything except itself!
6	Deepak Jena	Gives relief from a way of seeing.
7	GB Sethi	Morning walk, You are not alone
8	GR Sreenivasan	Feels like floating in seventh Heaven.
9	Jaishankar	Rivulets of mist through a swathe of green.
10	J Ramamoorty	Once the mist lifts, the picture would be clearer
11	Jyoti Dixit	Dreams and goals go with mist
12	LS Bhargava	Opaque and visibility friendship.
13	Manju Khetan	If you can live the beauty of the misty mornings, you are the king, you are the queen!!
14	Manu Bhatnagar	When the clouds kiss the earth...
15	MN Muralidharan	Sky on earth (Dharthi pur hi aasman)
16	Narendra Soni	Mist is always mysterious.
17	Naresh Kumar	Silence of Dawn
18	Nidhi Bhargava	ये कौन चित्रकार है?
19	Parag Sharma	The contours of night and misty morning  meet and  there is a mystic feeling of vastness.
20	Peter De Padua	As white as clouds, as light as laughter, as mysterious as Munnar.
21	Peter De Padua	Munnar mist or cloudy kissed.
22	Poonam Bhargava	Let the mist of the mind too unfold into beautiful sunny thoughts
23	Pradeep Siwach	Sunehri vadiyan.
24	Prabhat Jindal	Morning Glory
25	Prabhat Jindal	Nature at its Best
26	Radhika Sareen	Mischievious mist in mystical morning
27	Radhika Sareen	No matter how powerful the mist is...cant hide the morning glory..
28	Radhika Sareen	There is always a silver line in mist too
29	Radhika Sareen	Mischievous mist hiding morning glory
30	Radhika Sareen	Haste makes mist in the mind hiding the bright thoughts…
31	Raghuraj Bhargava	Misty Morning or Mishty Morning
32	Rajendra Singh	Good morning greetings by nature decked in white. Adieu to monsoons, welcome winter cool and bright. Adieu to monsoons, welcome winter cool and bright.
33	Rajnesh Gossain	Mesmerizing Divinity
34	Rakesh Sharma	Shimmering lakes of silvery ice welcomes skaters' scarring slice. Hills adorned in lacy white watch children sleigh into the night.
35	Ramdas B Dhavare	Misty eyes of the Nature have their own Beauty!!
36	Rashmi Bhargava	Misty morning waiting for misty smile
37	Rekha Bhargava	बादल संग krirra का अह्सास है dhund। Rui में लिपटे होने का अह्सास है dhund।
38	Ritu Bhargava	Walk through mist without being lost.
39	Rohini Tiwari	Pahadon ne odha hai halke dhund ka dushala... sardi ka mazaa toh prakriti bhi leti hai!
40	Ruma Purkayastha	The  mysterious  mist
41	Ruma Purkayastha	Moist mysterious morning
42	Ruma Purkayastha	A misty moist morning
43	Shereen Sultana	Keep your thoughts as clear as the clarity after the mist.
44	Sujata Das	On a misty foggy morning, on the glass of my window, I still write your name.
45	Umesh Dhyani	भाई मिष्टी दही तो सुना, मिष्टी मौरनिग क्या है?
46	Unknown	Nature's Misty Eyes
47	Veeky Baths	The fog always lifts.
48	Vinay Prasad	Go through the mist and find the truth!
49	Vinod Dhanuka	Serenity in Silence
50	Yogesh Verma	Ek Dhund se aana hai Ek Dhund mein jaana hai

Winners

The Jury comprising of Akanksha Bhargava and Anchita Nidhindra (both in USA) has selected the following captions as Winners. Both the jury members are keen travellers, writers, Nature lovers and qualified school teachers. The winning captions along with brief profiles of the writers are given below. Our congratulations to them.

Avinash Tiwari loves golf, gardening and music. A former Col of Indian Army, he is a War Veteran of 1971 war. Having done enough route marches with his troops, he detests long morning walks except on the golf course. He is a regular contributor and winner of KBG contests. His  caption 'Aaj main oopar aasman neeche!' आज मैं ऊपर आसमाँन नीचे  meaning 'Today I am above the sky!' was the Jury's immediate choice.

Peter de Padua has won the KBG Contests previously also. A former Wing Commander of IAF, Peter is a water sport enthusiast. His short and crisp caption 'Munnar mist or cloudy kissed.' won the Jury's appreciation.

Shereen Sultana appreciates Nature and has been a past winner of several KBG Contests. With an MBA in finance she applies her creative thinking in life. Her caption 'Keep your thoughts as clear as the clarity after the mist.' was simple and appealing.

Our next winning caption 'Nature's Misty Eyes' came from an unknown contestant. Very apt, the Jury selected it. We would be happy to add the profile of the winner if revealed by the anonymous contestant.

Once again our thanks to all the contestants and congratulations to the winners.

Hope you enjoyed the morning mist in Munnar hills. If you haven't been there, do plan a visit after Covid restrictions are lifted. And those who have been there, do share a picture or two for all of us to see.

We end with a PQ- picturesque quote by Rabindra Nath Tagore who wrote that "The mountain remains unmoved at it's seeming defeat by the mist".

Thank you all the readers for your continued support to Ghumakkad.

Stay connected, stay safe.

   - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad with Neeta Bhargava/ 15th November 2021

#mist #hills #nature #mistymorning #hiking #munnar #ghumakkadhb #ghumakkadharsh #KBG #kaunbanegaghumakkad #onlinecontest #lockdownfun #takeabreak #captions #powerofobservation #craetivecaptions #pqs #picturesquequotations #naturetheteacher #learningthroughpictures #kerala #observeandlearn