When I told my father I was torn between settling in Goa or the Nilgiris, he thought about it for a moment and said: “So basically, sushi versus cool climate.”
He wasn’t wrong.
After two and a half years in Goa, I knew I wanted to buy somewhere and settle properly. Goa had taught me things — about what I needed from a place, about what I could live without, about the particular misery of being at the mercy of someone else’s decision about your rent. I was done renting. I wanted roots.
I looked at Goa first, because it was familiar by then. But property prices had gone the way property prices go when too many people discover somewhere beautiful at the same time. What I could afford was remote, or required more renovation money than I had, or both. I’d still be dealing with the heat and the snakes and the monsoon that once caused my underground water tanks to literally pop out of the ground from the pressure. I kept looking.
Cool climate year-round, a landscape that looked, from every photograph I could find, like somewhere a person could breathe properly. But I had never even visited. I found half a dozen people online and on Instagram who lived there and sent them all a little introductory message asking what life was actually like. They all wrote back. Many were sweet enough to share their numbers so we could talk at length. That told me something.
I booked four weeks and went to see for myself.
I worked during the weekdays and saw over seventy-five houses over weekends. Different areas, different elevations, different price points — Ooty, Coonoor, Ketty, Ithalar, Kotagiri, places in between. I wasn’t going to build; I’d always felt uneasy about the carbon footprint of new construction, and practically speaking I couldn’t afford a home loan on top of rent while the build happened. I wanted something existing. Something with bones.
I nearly bought a house in Coonoor. Beautiful place, the price agreed, nine visits made, three contractor quotes obtained for restoration. I got my parents to come one by one and check it out. Then the owner changed his mind at the last minute. I went back to square one.
And then I found Chom Chom.
Three bedrooms. Good road access — not a given here, many houses are only reachable by paths barely a car-width wide. Fifteen minutes from Kotagiri, twenty from Coonoor, five from the local market. One acre of tea. Neighbours who turned out to be, and I want to be precise about this, genuinely wonderful people. Warm, helpful, quietly looking out for you in the way that people in smaller communities sometimes do, if you’re lucky.
I stood on the land and something settled.
About the sushi: my father was right, I do miss a good food scene. No Vietnamese here, no Korean, no late-night ramen. You make everything yourself, or you do without. Coimbatore is two hours drive down when you want to catch a movie or walk a mall. It’s a bit of a trade-off and I won’t pretend otherwise.
But here’s what I got instead. Soft sunshine, cool breeze and birdsong in the afternoon. A view that changes with the light every other hour. Neighbours who bring you vegetables, thokku, companionship and laughter. Mornings so quiet you can hear your own thoughts.
The sushi was good. This is quite good too.
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