Steve and Cathy's Blog

We slide into Mangalore pretty much on time. Cathy and I are going on the Highlights of Mangalore excursion to get a taste of this very busy, industrial city. Cathy is looking out at the city from our veranda , and then spies about a dozen cows on the dock. Yes, cows. Hmmm.

Before we continue, a word of caution about these posts: India is a huge, complex, diverse place. We will touch two cities in India, and there is no way we could possibly do justice to this country no matter how accurately we describe what we see. It would be like visiting Springfield, Illinois and then generalizing about the entire United States.

Enrichment Lecturer Peter Croyle said as much as he introduced the two cities we are to visit. When he concluded, he just said “Embrace the chaos!” Steve does just that. I find the place energizing; Cathy maybe not so much. Both of us admire the people we see. They are busy, hard-working, polite and charming. Indian culture is fascinating and so unlike anyplace we have ever been. Even in a relatively small city such as Mangalore, we get a sense of the immensity of the country, its economy and its potential. It currently has 1.3 billion people, and our guide tells us that they are on track to become the planet’s largest population soon.

Okay, back to our day. It begins with a taste of legendary Indian bureaucracy: a face-to-face visit with Immigration. We got a foreshadowing of this when we applied for the India visa a few months ago. It was long, complex and full of almost personal questions such as religious affiliation. Here on the ship, three forms were delivered to each of us. One was a yellow card that we are to carry with us while ashore, after being stamped by Immigration and another white form that the immigration people would keep when we showed our passport to them, and a third for the second port. I think that’s how it worked.

So we are called up, by excursion, to Horizons and proceed through the cattle call like we did for South Africa. It actually goes faster than expected, but the immigration people are indeed very thorough. And then other officials, including Indian military, continue to inspect this yellow card as we 1) proceed out of Horizons, 2) walk to the bottom of the gangway, and 3) enter the passenger terminal. We not only have to keep showing this stamped yellow card, but show a paper copy of page two of our passport. I theorize that this is an employment generating procedure, but who really knows. It may be a hangover from the days of British rule for all we know.

We board Bus 21, see some more cows on our way out. These are not the sacred cows of northern India, but we never do find out what they’re doing in this port. Next our delightful, adorable and charming guide Afshana introduces herself and welcomes us to her country. She begins by describing this busy port city of 600,000. It is the ninth largest port in India, and is the principal export point for the nation’s cashew, coffee and iron ore industries. There is also a considerable petroleum industry here as well. She goes on to explain that 1,600 languages are spoken in India. The most common have to do with which religion you practice. Since the vast majority of Indians are Hindu, the Hindi language is most common.   Muslims speak another language. English is the one language that enables all these peoples to communicate with each other, and is the language of commerce and government. Afshana almost apologetically says that she “only” speaks six languages.

We cross one river and Afshana points out boats that are “sand mining.” Another big industry in Mangalore. Interesting. She also tells us that Mangalore is known in India as the “cradle of banking.” Several of the country’s largest banks started in this city, and a couple of them are headquartered here. After crossing one other bridge, we arrive in the city center. Our first taste of Indian urban life. It is a madhouse, even though it’s a Saturday. She explains that the city has a “culture of half days” on Saturday, which means that shops are open half the day and so forth. 80% of the population is Hindu, 14% are Muslim so the “weekend” is another relic of British rule. Regardless, it is crazy busy.

We arrive at our first stop, and are dropped off about one hundred fifty yards from it. Afthasa makes an announcement before we disembark the bus: “I need for all of you to stay very close and always follow me. If you stray, I will not be able to find you, as all of you look the same to me.” This lightens things up nicely, and we do indeed do as she instructs. When we get off the bus, the first thing we notice is how hot it is. I mean it is h-o-t! Thank God there is a small breeze.

We are at Kudroli Gokarnath Temple, built in 1912. It was built by a wealthy businessman to celebrate Narayana Guru, a messiah of the Billava community. Under the caste system in place at the time, the Billava were considered to be “untouchables” by the upper three castes, even to the extent of being denied the opportunity to worship in Hindu temples.   Adhyaksha Koragappa, the businessman, was incensed at this discrimination and built the temple in honor of Narayana Guru, so that all people regardless of status could worship together. It was extensively renovated in the 1990s and serves both as a Hindu temple and a tourist attraction that introduces this intriguing religion to people like us who know absolutely nothing about it.

The courtyard is guarded by two large black elephant statues and our guide explains that they are there to welcome us and to protect us. There is also a large statue of some kind of mythical animal that sort of looks like a cat. Steve nods incomprehensively as she explains the significance of these statues. After we take off our shoes, our guide takes us through the temple, making a valiant attempt to explain the various gods and significance of the holy places within the temple. To no avail, at least to me. I am unable to understand even the names, but I did leave with a very positive impression of how Hinduism is used in an adherent’s daily lives and philosophy. Afshana does take us to one large room used for weddings, and spends a very interesting fifteen minutes describing Indian marriage practices, whether arranged by the families (still very much practiced) or by the couples themselves.

She also shows us a Tulsi plant, which she says is grown by every Hindu family. Here is a brief description from Wikipedia: “Tulsi or Tulasi (Ocimum tenuiflorum) or Holy Basil is a sacred plant in Hindu belief. Hindus regard it as an earthly manifestation of the goddess Tulsi; she is regarded as a great worshipper of the god Vishnu. The offering of its leaves is mandatory in ritualistic worship of Vishnu and his forms like Krishna and Vithoba.

Many Hindus have tulsi plants growing in front of or near their home, often in special pots or a special masonry structure known as Tulsi Vrindavan as this is related to their culture. Traditionally, Tulsi is planted in the center of the central courtyard of Hindu houses. The plant is cultivated for religious and medicinal purposes, and for its essential oil. It has many health benefits as well.”

We finally have to make our way back to the street. By now, the street is a crowded tangle of cars, trucks, tuk tuks (three-wheel vehicles used as cabs), public buses and our big tour buses. It takes about fifteen minutes for our bus to even get near where we are. Our driver parks, and the people that he is blocking start yelling. Our guide is no slouch, and she starts yelling back. Then she urges us to board the bus asap so we can get out of here and those being blocked can continue as well. It’s an interesting moment.

Our next stop is St. Aloysius Chapel, built in the 1880s by Jesuit Missionaries as the chapel for St. Aloysius College. These Italian missionaries played a large role in establishing educational institutions in the area. St. Aloysius was beatified for his work in Rome during a plague, at which time he contracted the disease and died at age 23.   In 1899, Antonio Moscheni painted the walls and ceiling of this enormous chapel. Frescos cover 600 square metres of the walls, and oil paintings on canvas cover 400 metres of ceiling. The artwork is so remarkable (not the least of the reasons is that all this was accomplished in two years) that it is often compared to the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican. The place is absolutely mesmerizing for the effort that went into it.

The chapel is part of the St. Aloysius Institutions, a collection of schools that educate students from kindergarten through college in Mangalore. At the college level, many, many different degrees are offered, with the tuition being determined by which discipline a student chooses. For instance, a humanities course of study will cost 5,000 rupees per year, while a business major will cost 24,000 rupees per year. Law and medicine are even more.   While the institution is affiliated with the Roman Catholic faith, students of all faiths are welcomed.

The third stop is Belmont House, built by a British magistrate and collector, Michael Thomas Harris. Unfortunately, he died at age forty, and his family moved back to England. It passed through several ownerships, and was purchased for $400 by Joan and Michael Peres sometime after WWII. It has remained in the family, and is now open to the public. It’s a very attractive house of six bedrooms, with very lovely grounds. We are given lemonade refreshment and some delicious homemade cashew and ginger cookies as we tour the home.   When it was built, no doubt it was in the country. Now it is smack dab in the middle of this city, but it is a pleasant oasis in the midst of choking traffic.

It takes a few minutes for our driver to extricate our bus from the traffic. These drivers are highly skilled and plain fearless, and he uses the rule of “bigger has right of way” to great advantage. We head out of the city center, actually go past the ship to our final stop, the Aschal Cashew Company. Cashews are a huge crop grown in his region of India. In a measure of irony, the industry exports so many cashews that they have to import the largest sizes of cashews from Africa. This industrial plant employs five hundred people, 99% of whom are women. They are paid $17 per day to perform just one of the seven processes needed to deliver a final product. It is quite the industrial operation, and by the end of the tour, Cathy is saying: “No wonder cashews cost so much!” The tour takes us through the entire plant, and we start with the free day care center, which is one of the inducements to get women to work here in this hot, noisy place. The children we see are a-dorable; it’s one of the best parts of the tour.

At the end of the tour, we of course have to buy some cashews, and we are also given gifts of small bags by the company.   They are as delicious as advertised. In fact, I could not write these paragraphs about the plant without stopping to have a snack of these delicious nuts.

Alas, our four-hour tour is over. We arrive back at the ship, and have an opportunity to shop in the passenger terminal.   Cathy and I debate whether we will return to the shops later in the afternoon and decide no. This decision is important, as we must turn in our “shore card” when we are certain. After two or three other officials check these cards on our way to the ship, we board.

The rest of the day is spent on the ship. The heat has gotten to us, despite our air-conditioned bus. Lunch, naps, reading, writing, din-din and sleep. All in a day’s work. Our first introduction to amazing India was very enlightening. We are so glad to have finally seen this part of the world about which we have heard so much. And tomorrow we will see an entirely different city 200 miles south of here, Cochin.