The man by the name Hugo Wood, who planted thousands of teak trees at Mount Stuart Block near Top Slip, breathed his last on December 12, 1933. With his ardent love for the trees he planted, Wood had expressed his wish that he should be buried amidst them. The Latin inscription on his tomb near Top Slip reads thus: ‘Si Monumentum Requiris Circumspice’
As read from lessons in history and regional literature, the state’s exercising of rights over forests is not something new today. Many of the denizens of Coimbatore, who are hardly aware of their town’s ancient history, have a wrong notion that the city was just a part of the Chera kingdom. But, it is a fact that the geographical area of our present-day town was once captured by the Chera kings for its forest wealth.
Anamalai, a small town after Pollachi in the Coimbatore district, which literally means ‘mountain of elephants’ was the first area captured by the Chera kings in the Kongu region. A place known for its elephant population, Anamalai’s old name ‘Umbarkadu’ was also synonymous with her jumbos as ‘Umbal’ meaning elephant, and ‘Kadu’ denoting forest.
“It is Palyaanai Selkazhu Kuttuvan, the younger brother of the Chera king Imayavaramban Neduncheralathan, was the one that captured Umbarkadu from the Kongu region,” says the late Tamil scholar Mayilai. Seeni. Venkatasamy in his popular book Kongunattu Varalaru.
Later on, the forests of the Kongu region were exploited also by the British government for its commercial gains.
Forest History of the Anamalais, a book published by the Tamil Nadu Forest Department, says that the objective of the British administration of forests was to have them as timber-producing properties, managed on commercial principles.
As the British government was in great need of timber to build ships and lay railway tracks, a great number of trees were felled. As a result, the forests of Anamalai soon turned to be victims of ruthless exploitation.Those days, giant teak trees were axed down into logs and carried by the tamed wild elephants. Then from a particular point, the wooden logs were floated down the river of the plains. Interestingly, the spot, from where the logs were rolled down, came to be called ‘Top Slip’ which is a picturesque location with a salubrious climate on the Anamalai mountain range.
In the month of December, Anamalai remembers a gem among the British conservators of forests for his yeoman service in stopping the exploitation of woods.
The man by the name Hugo Wood, who planted thousands of teak trees at Mount Stuart Block near Top Slip, breathed his last on December 12, 1933.With his ardent love for the trees he planted, Wood had expressed his wish that he should be buried amidst them. The Latin inscription on his tomb near Top Slip reads thus:
‘Si Monumentum Requiris Circumspice’
The expression means “If you want to see a monument to remember me, just look around”
The dried leaves of the teak trees gently fall on Hugo’s grave, as if they are waking him up from his long slumber.