Christopher Penn, the great grandson of ATW Penn, one of the first photographers who documented the Nilgiris and Southern India, visited the Nilgiris on Saturday and made a presentation at the Nilgiri Library of his great-grandfather’s photographs.
Mr. Penn, who stumbled upon his gilded ancestry by sheer coincidence in 2000, has been visiting the Nilgiris over the last decade.
Mr. Penn made a pictorial chronicle of the early Nilgiris, by reading from his book and also based on research done on the pictures.
Mr. Penn exhibited photographs of the Ooty Boat House, Willow Bund, a view from St. Stephen's Church, Tiger Hill and many more.
Reading from his book, Mr. Penn, who is 79-years-old, and believes that this could be his final visit to the Nilgiris, described the funeral rites of the Todas, emphasising the importance of the Toda buffalo to the local culture.
The author said that the buffalo would be sacrificed with a single blow, and placed in the grave of the fallen man in such a way that the head of the deceased would touch the buffaloes’ and the hand would be in contact with the animal’s horn. Geetha Sreenivasan, president of the Nilgiri Library, welcomed Mr. Penn.
