Periyar National Park
My great-grandfather was a spice smuggler. But the good kind – he was smuggling history.
Raman laughs when he tells me this, his eyes crinkling like old maps. For four generations, his family has guided travelers through the same forest paths that once carried India’s most precious cargo to the world.
“You modern people think GPS knows everything. But my grandfather’s grandfather knew which route to take during monsoon, which trees meant water was nearby, which sounds meant tigers. That knowledge? Google can’t download it.”
He shows me a cardamom plant that’s older than India’s independence. “This plant has seen the British come and go; seen India wake up free, seen the world change. But it still grows the same way – slowly, patiently, perfectly.”
“When tourists come, they want to rush through everything. Take photos, tick boxes, move on. But the forest doesn’t work that way. The forest teaches you to slow down, to listen, to respect.”
As we walked deeper into the spice groves, he shared stories his father told him, that his grandfather told his father. “Stories are like spices,” he said. “They preserve the flavor of time.”
Three hours with Raman taught me more about India than three years of textbooks ever could. Some teachers wear ties. The best ones wear the wisdom of generations.
– Zara