Take a good look before they're gone - The southernmost mountains in India

Yes, I know that these are not mountains but I like the silvery water drops on the lotus leaves and I like the clouds and water combo in the following picture.


And now back to the mountains.


I was home for like half a day because I couldn't get any trains from Kodi back to Madras. My dad and I went for an early morning drive because I wanted pictures of Cat rock.


Cat rock is this strange formation near some of the hills on the outskirts of Nagercoil towards Trivandrum. I don't think it's officially called that. I started calling it that after I watched the "Bad day at Cat Rock" Tom & Jerry cartoon. I love Cat rock and no trip to Trivandrum was complete if I didn't see it on the way. To me, passing a black cat was actually a good thing. My mom still gets excited for me when we pass it (I think she secretly likes him too). I've always been worried that people will destroy Cat rock because there's so much quarrying happening there. My dad told me that some of these are the last (as in southernmost) mountains part of the ghat range. We took some pictures before they ended up looking a lot worse. These are the things that make you sad and angry at the same time.

Look, it has eagles soaring and everything.


I spoke to a friend who is actually in the quarrying business to tell him what I felt and maybe hear their side of it. He kept insisting that we'll never run out of mountains. That's probably what the poachers think. But I can't blame him. That's his job; he can't afford to worry about the environment. He said that the topography of our land is such that its better to quarry the hills than the ground and that getting granite from neighbouring towns that have no mountains or such greenery isn't economical for them and that people have houses to live in because of their work. Houses instead of mountains? hmmm. That would be fine if we were capable of rebuilding mountains like we build houses or even if it were like planting trees. Alas, pebbles are not mountain seeds.

Could they not build the same houses if they just sacrificed a bit and got the stones from the ground? Once all the hills were quarried, wouldn't they have to go to the plains? He said that all the hills won't be gone and that the government permits them to attack quarry only select hills. Well, I consider this route to be a scenic one and these hills are part of that!
It probably wasn't a relaxing conversation for him because he requested that I don't do anything. I told him all that I could do was speak to the ones actually doing the damage and hope they get to see what it is they're destroying. I realised that most people don't care and if their job requires taking from Earth, they will do just that. After all, how necessary are a bunch of turtles or leopards or hills?


ps - The title was my dad, the copywriter's idea