Shrubs of Morni: Sonkadi

Mornee Tramp • November 25, 2013

Sonkadi (Pentanema indicum) is a herb of the ‘Sunflower family’ that grows up to 1 metre tall. It has attractive, yellow flower-heads with 12 to 24 ray flowers (petals). Leaves are lance-like and stalkless. It is found on grassy slopes of the Himalayas.

Sonkadi, Pentanema indicum, Thalapur, Bhoj Balag, Morni hills (November)-Photo courtesy Zorawar

Filed in: Trees & Shrubs

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An environmental enthusiast who loves tramping through the hills in search of the picturesque.

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Morni Diaries

Riders in the sky

It was after much persuasion that the Doc finally agreed to accompany me for a ride on the Thunderbird to the hills. It was nearly two and a half years since we had made our historic first trip to the Tikkar Cottage in the hills on the motorbike. We had somehow managed to resurrect the […]

Mornee Tramp • September 2, 2013 • 4 Comments

A walk to remember!

It was 7:35 AM when the phone chimed softly on receiving an urgent SMS. “It’s raining cats and dogs. Please reconsider the trip!” It was the King, getting the nerves before the trip. The request was five minutes too late!! I had actually managed to start dot on time at 7:30 AM. Not that I […]

Mornee Tramp • August 1, 2013 • 5 Comments

Jungle Warriors

It was aloo paranthas topped with dollops of delicious (cholesterol-enriched?) AMUL butter for breakfast! I hogged to my heart’s desire without any of the attendant guilt as we had decided to skip our lunch for the day. We had reached our friends’ rather tastefully kept home at Panchkula the previous night and I had the […]

Mornee Tramp • June 30, 2013 • 6 Comments

A forest in flames and the tranquillity of Thandog

A glass of sweet ‘lassi’ (buttermilk) awaited me as I turned into the lane for King Uncle’s house and headed for the majestic palms that make his house stand out in an otherwise nondescript small-town locality. The car battery had given me a scare on the way and I was not sure whether I could safely […]

Mornee Tramp • May 7, 2013 • 1 Comment

Into the leopard’s lair

I was late. It was Delhi again. Anybody who has had the experience of moving in to this ‘City of Djinns’ knows how the mega-polis discourages the newcomer from making the entry. It can be years before you reconcile to its undecipherable maze of unending roads, its congested gullies, the packed markets and the soulless […]

Mornee Tramp • March 15, 2013 • 1 Comment

The Jewel of Mallah

It was a cold, foggy morning of January as I started for a yet another adventure in the Morni hills. I had a new companion for the trip. My ‘e-pen pal’ from the land of the Blue Mountains. A nature lover I had encountered on the net and had struck a firm friendship with. We […]

Mornee Tramp • February 4, 2013 • 1 Comment

Exploring Bharal

The discovery of leopard pugmarks near the watering hole atop the hill at Mandana had excited me no end and I was sure that I was destined to encounter my spotted friend on my very next trip, provided I dared to venture deep enough into the forest. I was determined to make the trip before […]

Mornee Tramp • December 11, 2012 • 0 Comments

On the leopard trail

It had been raining in the Morni hills for over three weeks and I was impatient to be amidst the cloud covered hills. The Morni hills are their greenest and undoubtedly their most scenic during the monsoon season but they are also their trickiest. The rain softens the hard compacted red clay of the Shivaliks […]

Mornee Tramp • August 2, 2012 • 9 Comments

A Short Trip to Aasrewali

It was April when I learnt about the plans of the wildlife department of Haryana to conduct a census of the wildlife in the Morni Hills. The census is generally conducted during the dry season as most of the water sources dry up in the higher hills and the animals are forced to emerge from […]

Mornee Tramp • July 3, 2012 • 0 Comments

On the bike with Baghera – Bunga and Masoompur

A great thing about the Christian faith is that its holidays follow the Gregorian calendar and fall on fixed dates. Better still the Good Friday holiday has to, by definition, fall on a Friday and gives one an assured extended weekend. The Hindu, Islamic and Sikh religions are less obliging and holidays fall on dates […]

Mornee Tramp • April 13, 2012 • 1 Comment

An evening with King Uncle

‘My naana-ji was a pehalwaan,’ he announced proudly, ‘Rustam-e-Punjab‘. This had us all in splits. Nobody comes to a post-grad hostel and talks about the physical prowess of his maternal grandfather. Everybody just knows it without ever having been taught. But he somehow didn’t. He was a ready-witted, hard-core fauji kid who was born with […]

Mornee Tramp • March 26, 2012 • 1 Comment

Driving with Zorba

The movie, ‘Zorba the Greek,’ immortalized by Anthony Quinn’s characterization of the rustic, full-spirited Zorba, left quite an impression on me. I thought and talked about Zorba until I had my wife worried. ‘You are increasingly mistaking eccentricity for style,’ she complained, ‘ and I hope you are not nursing a secret desire to live […]

Mornee Tramp • March 21, 2012 • 6 Comments

The Lady with the Mastiff

The construction of the ‘Tikkar Cottage,’ our dream home in the Morni hills, was finally coming to an end. We had not realized the challenges involved in undertaking construction in the hills and our time schedule and budget projections had gone completely haywire. The plan was to have a cute little hill cottage with a […]

Mornee Tramp • December 21, 2011 • 0 Comments

Sherla Revisited

My appetite for Morni is insatiable. I can wander aimlessly in these hills without ever getting bored. We were into the second day of a weekend and I had managed to convince my pals to accompany me for a photography excursion to the hills. The ‘Doc’ had lost 25 pounds since our last misadventure with […]

Mornee Tramp • December 15, 2011 • 1 Comment

The Lady of Morni

‘Will these trees do well in Morni?’ I asked the dignified fauji owner of the beautiful nursery at the foot of the Morni hills. We were having tea in the Colonel’s breezy ‘field office,’ a modest wooden structure with a tin-roof. A tiny mouse peered at us inquisitively through a crack in the wooden false ceiling, […]

Mornee Tramp • December 12, 2011 • 3 Comments

The Mason of Tikkar

It was afternoon by the time I reached the Tikkar Cottage. I had a quick lunch. The usual dal makhni and aloo fry with paranthas that the cook of the next door cottage-hotel specializes in. I donned my biking shoes, slung my camera, strapped my helmet and thundered off to Tikkar Tal, my destination for […]

Mornee Tramp • December 9, 2011 • 5 Comments

The Journey Begins

‘It’s a monstrous waste of money,’ I beseeched my brother-in-law for the nth time. He was in the process of buying a ‘Thunderbird’, a jazzed up version of the Royal Enfield’s 350 cc motorcycle, the classic ‘Bullet’. ‘A fuel-guzzling world war II relic that is bought only by the doodhwallahs (milkmen) for door-to-door delivery. An […]

Mornee Tramp • December 8, 2011 • 1 Comment

Good Wood

My father loved the hills. He could feel the romance of a hill station. He would have loved to own a little ivy-covered stone cottage on a pine hill. To have walked down its cobbled pathway through the morning mist, sporting a masculine overcoat, the broad brim of his stylish felt hat pulled low over […]

Mornee Tramp • October 7, 2011 • 4 Comments

History

Kotaha in India Office Records

The never ending search for the history of Morni and Kotaha has now led to the, hand-written British records of the 19th century that have been meticulously preserved in the archives of the British Library at London. These bound volumes form a part of the India Office Records – the records of the British Rule […]

Mornee Tramp • November 4, 2016 • 0 Comments

Gold washers of Nahan

Lieutenant Proby Thomas Cautley, the famous ‘fossilwallah‘ of the Shiwalik Hills, wrote a letter in April 1835 to the Secretary Bengal Asiatic Society (it was published in the 4th Volume of the Asiatic Journal the same year) in which he described the working of the gold washers in the beds of the rivers under Nahan. Cautley talks […]

Mornee Tramp • October 5, 2016 • 1 Comment

When Ahmad Shah Durrani went hunting in Pinjore (1765)

One of the most powerful men to have visited Pinjore and to have hunted in the forests of the Pinjore dun and the Morni hills was Ahmad Shah Durrani (Abdali) who visited the valley during his seventh invasion of India in 1764-65. Abdali halted at the garden in Pinjore while marching towards Delhi with his […]

Mornee Tramp • August 13, 2014 • 0 Comments

When Jardine came for a tiger shoot to Pinjore

The Pinjore Dun was covered by a thick forest in the 19th century and was famous for its wildlife including tigers, elephants and even lions. Ahmad Shah Abdali, the Afghan invader had camped at Pinjore in 1765 for tiger hunting. The Pinjore jungles remained the hunting preserves (Shikargarhs) of the Patiala Maharajas since the middle […]

Mornee Tramp • May 5, 2014 • 0 Comments

When Morni hills nearly went to Himachal

The persistent Akali demand for the creation of a Punjabi Suba on linguistic lines resulted in the setting up of a 22 member Parliamentary Committee of both Houses of Parliament in 1965 for finding a satisfactory settlement of the demand for the Punjabi Suba. The Committee was presided over by Sardar Hukam Singh, the Speaker […]

Mornee Tramp • July 4, 2013 • 1 Comment

Fossil discovery in Morni Hills

Captain Proby Thomas Cautley, an engineer of the Bengal Artillery (and a palaeontologist) did pioneering research on the geology of India and discovered many fossil remains of extinct quadrupeds at the southern foot of the Himalayas. Dr. Hugh Falconer, Superintendent of the Botanic Garden at Saharunpore was his close research associate. The duo were conferred […]

Mornee Tramp • April 21, 2012 • 4 Comments

Glimpses of History: Excavations at Morni-ka-tal

A number of Brahmanincal stone sculptures of the early medieval and the Pratihara period were excavated at the ancient Thakur Dwara Temple at Morni-ka-tal in 1970s.The sculptures include the icons of Karttikeya, Surya, Siva, Uma-Mahesvara, Ganesa, Lakulisa, Vishnu, Nataraja, Trimurti, Siva-linga etc Six such sculptures have been housed in the section on medieval sculptures in […]

Mornee Tramp • April 10, 2012 • 0 Comments

Glimpses of History: Masoompur Fort

The Meers of Kotaha ruled from their fortress at Garhi Kotaha with smaller forts at Mornee and Masoompur. The Masoompur fort is set on a small mud hillock and it overlooks the sharp ravines to its south that break into the plains beyond. The Masoompur village lies to the South-West. The fort was a post under the […]

Mornee Tramp • April 9, 2012 • 0 Comments

Shikar stories from Morni and around

The thick jungles that once clothed the Shivalik hill region west of Yamuna with its characteristic rugged, clay and boulder topography – a region with numerous seasonal soats (streams); dark narrow khols (rocky ravines); flat, wide duns (valleys); precipitous deep khuds and sharp mud escarpments – enjoyed a rich presence of wildlife till the end of the 19th century. The […]

Mornee Tramp • November 30, 2011 • 0 Comments

Morni Fort: The Golden Bastions

The Fort: The Morni Fort is a modest stone masonry structure built sometime in the 17th Century atop the Morni hill at a height of about 1200 metres. The fort is strategically located and dominates the road to Badiyal towards Sarahan in Himachal, the road to Trilokpur, the ridge road towards Thapli/ Mandana and the […]

Mornee Tramp • October 27, 2011 • 1 Comment

Glimpses of History: Ruins of Kotaha

Kotaha Fort: Kotaha or Garhi-Kotaha, 20 miles north of Umballa, was the seat of power under the Rule of the Mirs that started with the coming of Hakim General Qasim-ul-Khan in early 17th century. The Mirs ruled the Hills of Morni and the ilaqa of Kotaha and Naraingarh from their formidable fort at Kotaha. Major William Lloyd and […]

Mornee Tramp • October 25, 2011 • 4 Comments

People and Customs of Morni

There are interesting accounts about the nature, character and customs of the hill people of Morni in the 19th and early 20th century British Gazetteers, books and newspapers. Some of these accounts are reproduced for the readers: ‘The Morni cultivators: The cultivators in the Morni hills are chiefly Gujars, Kanets and Brahmans in the lower hills […]

Mornee Tramp • October 15, 2011 • 0 Comments

Glimpses of History: Secret Letters during Gurkha War 1814-1816

Interesting insights are offered by a reading of the ‘Secret Letters’ that formed a part of the ‘Papers regarding the Administration of the Marquiz of Hastings in India’ that were tabled at a General Court of the ‘United Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies’ on 3rd March 1824. A secret letter […]

Mornee Tramp • October 10, 2011 • 0 Comments

Glimpses of History: Rajah’s encounter with Col. Gillespie 1807

‘A Memoir of Major-General R. R. Gillespie (1816)’ by Major William Thorn has an interesting account of the encounter of Lt. Col. R. R. Gillespie with the Rajah of Morni in 1807. Col.Gillespie rose to fame with his daring cavalry charge at the head of the Light Dragoons in July 1806 from Arcot to Vellore […]

Mornee Tramp • October 9, 2011 • 4 Comments

Glimpses of History: Letters of Gouree Sah, Commander of Morni, 1815

During the Gurkha invasion of the Hill States, Morni fort was taken by Gouree Sah, a Chhetri-Rajput, a hill tribe from Pyuthan in South West Nepal.Pyuthan was one of the 24 small kingdoms in the Chaubisi Rajya confederation in the vicinity of the Gandaki river. Gorkha was also one of the Chaubisi Kingdoms, 60 KM […]

Mornee Tramp • October 9, 2011 • 1 Comment

History of Morni

The 14 ‘BHOJS’ of Thakur Rajputs: The Morni Hills were originally held by Rajput Thakurs who had divided the territory into 14 small estates. Each of these estates was called a ‘BHOJ’ and included several hamlets or ‘DHANIS’. The sub-division thus effected persists to this day and each bhoj retains much the same boundaries as it […]

Mornee Tramp • October 7, 2011 • 36 Comments

Around Morni

Villages

Environment

Vetiver introduced in Morni – An Experiment Begins

Morni hills are composed of a fragile mix of clay, rocks and boulders and experience heavy erosion during the monsoons. Landslides are common, especially where the natural stability of hill slopes has been disturbed by cutting roads and paths into the hill, rendering the structure unstable. The sudden heavy rainfall towards the end of the […]

Mornee Tramp • July 14, 2013 • 9 Comments

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