An ode to the hills: Sky Islands, a digital platform featuring stories from the Western Ghats, set to be launched

The Kodaikanal hills
| Photo Credit: THANGARATHINAM N

When Rajni George got here again to her hometown of Kodaikanal after spending a number of years in Delhi and overseas, she was dismayed to see how a lot the hills had modified. “It really hit home how bad things were in our hill stations,” she says. “The older generation had done a lot to preserve our environment,” she feels, including that this modified someplace alongside the manner. The Western Ghats, her house, was consistently in the information for the unsuitable causes: landslides, over growth, carrying capability debate. Rajni realised that a technique to contribute to the betterment of the hills was by placing collectively a dependable useful resource that may create an affect.

The crew’s writers, trustees and advisors
| Photo Credit:
Special association

“We started out as a fun community project four years ago,” says Rajni, talking about their WhatsApp group throughout the second wave of Covid-19, which developed into the Kodai Chronicle that revealed stories particular to, however not restricted to Kodaikanal. “We brought out bi-monthly issues, each of which carried ten stories,” remembers Rajni, the founding editor and writer, including that the concept was to join different hill stations as nicely, providing sources for folks residing there, aside from performing on stories from the area.

While Kodai Chronicle will not be lively anymore, it has advanced into Sky Islands, a digital media platform administered by the Kodai Chronicle Trust, that can carry stories, in addition to audio and video content material on the Western Ghats and the lived experiences of its folks, instructed by its indigenous voices. Set to be launched on April 17, the digital platform will initially characteristic a story a month. The first piece will be by Murugeshwari, a reporter from the Paliyar neighborhood. “She is doing a series on the Paliyar lifestyle,” factors out Rajni. “They are the first settlers of these hills,” including that Sky Islands will “amplify voices of the Western Ghats that are not heard often.”

Murugeshwari, who writes in Tamil, is being mentored by Kamakshi Narayanan, an editor from their crew, who can also be translating her stories into English. Murugeshwari just lately obtained funding from Shared Ecologies by the Shyama Foundation to assist her work.

Sky Islands is set to be launched with a fund-raiser live performance featuring vocalists Suman Sridhar and Seema Ramchandani and musicians from the Dindigul Mavattam Kodaikanal Poombarai Grama Kalai Kuzhu. This will be adopted by the occasion The Power of Collaborative Storytelling in collaboration with Kodaikanal International School’s Centre for Environment and Humanity, featuring talks by Murugeshwari and Suman Sridhar. A spotlight is dinner made with recent produce from the hills and indigenous rice varieties.

The fund-raiser live performance is on April 17, 5pm, at Mountain Retreat Kodai; whereas The Power of Collaborative Storytelling is on April 18. For passes and particulars, go to www.thekodaichronicle.com.