15th November 2009: A commemorative
postage stamp
on
THE SILENT VALLEY
India
Posts (Department of Posts, India) issued a commemorative postage stamp on The
Silent Valley (Denomination -INR 05.00) on November 15, 2009.
The
Silent Valley National Park (91 Sq.mi) , a unique preserve of natural
rainforests, is located in the Nilgiri Hills, Palakkad District, Kerala.
The british named the area Silent Valley because of the absence of noisy
Cicadas, which are present in all forests.
The
River Kunthi flows from the Nilgiri hills and flows along the the valley and
down to the plains through the deep forest. One of the specialty of this
river Kunthi is that it never turns brown and the water is always crystal
clear.
The
area is locally known as "Sairandhrivanam" which literally
means Sairandhri's Forest. According to a Hindu legend, Sairandhri is Draupadi,
wife of the five Pandavas, who disguised herself as Sairandhri, queen
Sudeshna's assistant, while they were in exile for 14 years. They wandered
south, into what is now Kerala, until one day they came upon a magical valley where
rolling grasslands met wooded ravines, a deep green river bubbled its course
through impenetrable forest, where at dawn and twilight the tiger and elephant
would drink together at the water's edge, where all was harmonious and man
unknown. Beside that river, in a cave on a hill slope, the Pandavas decided to
stay during their exile.
The
Silent Valley national Park is one of the rare surviving original evergreen
tropical rain forests in the world. The Silent Valley Park was declared
as a National Park in 1984 by the Indian Government. This area is also
declared as plastic free zone.
The government of India website gives the mystic details of this rain forest:
“The
Valley exudes a quite grandeur, a mystery half revealed and half concealed
that is part of a story older than mankind, for this rainforest probably
dates back to 50 million years. Silently she beckons us to witness the
marvelous exuberance of life that expresses itself in an incredible chaos of
plants and animals and birds and insects. At the heart of her many songs is a
still, deep silence which only those who tread softly and wait patiently may
learn to hear.”
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