Today was my third and last day in Mangalore and one for
which I had not planned any “must see” places to visit. So with camera batteries fully charged, and
a large bottle of water in my ruck-sac, I set off, trying to keep to the shady
side of the streets on a cloudless and shimmering day. The plan for my walk was
‘no plan’. Just to follow the rule of going up and down any street that looked
interesting and attempting to engage as many local people as possible in
conversations----not difficult, as Mangalore is 100% unadulterated by tourists
and folks here are really happy to chat to a foreigner, someone different—it is
almost as if I had dropped in from another planet!
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| The guys in the cement bagging department.... |
After about an hour and a stop for my coffee, I found myself down in the
city docks on the river. A peculiar type of docks, as fishermen and
brick/cement shippers were all intermingled. The crates of fish being coated in
generous clouds of white dust from the cement packaging operation. The colours
of the place were tremendous under a powerful sun. The gangs of manual workers
exuberantly demanded that I take their pictures as soon as they spied my
camera—more than of several of them most happy to ham it up with arm waving and
whoops of delight at being ‘recorded’.
Drawing myself away from the friendly folks at the docks and in need of
my morning drink of coconut milk, I headed up the hill, back towards the
central city area, on the way noting things like stacks of colourful oranges on
a vendors wagon, or a particularly interesting derelict building—I am learning
that
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| Blocking the traffic to protest sexual harassment.... |
photography forces one to look at things not just see things. Hearing
music and loud speaker amplified chanting voices, my foot steps rapidly getting
faster, I arrive at a coordinated demonstration by several hundred sari clad
women, who had just moments before, had effectively seized a major traffic
intersection and blocked traffic from all directions. The police must have been
pre-warned as most of the police who arrived were female officers. Apparently
this protest is just one of many being conducted across India in
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| The police move in.... |
protest at
violence and sexual harassment being waged against females. There was a fair
amount of all female pushing & shoving as the demonstrators were loaded
into a fleet of buses that had been quickly drawn up. Male passers by looked on
bemused, but seemingly supportive of the female protests. I was able to chat to
several male senior police officers standing on the periphery and able to
congratulate them on the gentle and civilised manner in which this social
protest was handled—a victory for Indian democracy! In this city with a large
Muslim population, I noted that the female protesters were almost all Christian
& Buddhists.
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