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An English summer

Want to know what gracious living means?

SOLITARY SPLENDOUR At Erin Villa PHOTOs: K. ANANTHAN

What would you call a place surrounded by tea estates on three sides and overlooking the plains from the fourth?

What if it was almost a hundred years old and every beam and tile, every cobbled path and teacup bespoke elegance, graciousness and an essence of times gone by?

Well, in Coonoor they call it Erin Villa. And for want of a better description, let's just call it `catches-your-breath beautiful'.

It is not your regular `guest house.' There is none of the checking-in ritual and bellboys and hustle and bustle of a commercially-run holiday home.

In fact, so quiet and restful is it that one is loathe to disturb the calm of the place by calling out or ringing the doorbell. Thankfully, before one does that, the lady of the house, Naaz Jaffer, emerges with a welcoming smile and shows us to our cottage — an extension of the main house, yet private and independent.

Flower power

Before we move in, a little about the surroundings. The place is a riot of colours. Pink, blue, maroon, magenta, purple, yellow and, of course, the omnipresent green.

Orchids, dahlias, gerberas, hibiscus, lilies, pansies, snapdragons, roses and bougainvillea with a host of other flowers whose names we do not know, create an ambience that is pretty as a picture.

Little arches lead to smaller pockets of garden and quaint little gates lead to yet another garden. There are gardens within gardens and, by now, one has begun to feel like Alice in wonderland.

If you need a moment to absorb it all, just sit on the sun-warped wooden benches, complete with green peeling paint. They are idyllically placed and are just perfect for reading, having tea or just staring into space.

Actually, one should go to Erin Villa to simply sit and stare into space.

You don't have to go out and get pushed around by sweaty tourists, bargain with vendors or have pesky guides bombarding you with unwanted information. Just spending a day there is worth all the money you spend.

And you will spend Rs. 5,000 a night for the cottage that comes with two bedrooms with attached bathrooms, a sitting room, a dining room and, best of all, a kitchen/pantry complete with a gas stove, a refrigerator and some basic pots and pans.

If you dislike dressing for dinner and stepping out to mingle with the hoi polloi, you can cook up whatever your heart desires and not budge out for a meal. If you hate cooking, inform Naaz in advance and she will make arrangements to have the food delivered to your cottage. The breakfast comes free. Extra cots can be arranged for kids in tow. (So two families can split the cost of staying there).

Lovely linen

No holiday is complete without a tad of shopping and Erin Villa provides you with even that. Naaz is an embroidery aficionado and she sources exquisite needlework from various parts of South India and stocks them up in what she charmingly refers to as the `linen room'. It is officially called Needle Craft.

Piles of creamy linen, stacked in antique wardrobes, fill the room.

Glass topped shelves display pristine white tray cloths and serviettes, cocktail napkins and handkerchiefs with strawberries, butterflies and a variety of flowers delicately embroidered — very English teatime and upper class.

You almost expect the muffins and cucumber sandwiches to materialise in front of you.

There are intricately embroidered counterpanes and pillow cases, table cloths to fit banquet tables to more intimate tables for four with matching napkins, cushion covers edged with handmade lace and mind-boggling petit point work on sari borders and yokes (these are priced really high but Naaz assures us that there are a lot of people out there who regularly buy them and look on them as a legacy like a piece of jewellery they can pass on to their children).

You can pick up some pretty frocks for your kids with smocking and honeycomb work all done by nuns in convents. The needlework would be a great way to remember your stay at Erin Villa.

The bedroom has a charming dressing table — one that has little draws and a tilting mirror with a pretty lamp by the side to help you put your morning face on.

You can stroll out with your mug of tea or coffee and you feel like the Buddha, utterly blissful. Breakfast is golden toast served up elegantly on toast racks with some great preserves and some more tea or coffee.

Since it is just a couple of us, we join Naaz for breakfast in her cosy kitchen.

And it is an experience worth writing home about.

For details, contact Erin Villa, Singara Estate Road, Coonoor — 643101, call 0423-2230788, or just get to Coonoor and ask for Needle Craft.

PANKAJA SRINIVASAN

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