Mangalore, India

 We enjoyed our visit to Mangalore. It is much cleaner than the other ports that we have visited in India, and appears more prosperous with quite a lot of construction and newer buildings. Mangalore was also a Portuguese colony, and later a British protectorate. 

I loved this East meets West window display. Women's saris for sale on the left, and men's Levis on the right.

Our first stop was the Gokarnath Hindu Temple, which is a large complex honoring Shiva, the main God, and several other smaller temples honoring Gods who have specific functions in the Hindu religion. Many of the specific Gods are really different avatars of Shiva. It was all pretty wild and wonderful, with lots of half man/ half animal representations. The main takeaway from this particular temple was that it was built by a man who had risen from the "untouchable" caste who were not allowed to worship in many temples.  He wanted to create a temple "open to all to equally worship the one God"! The government has enlarged the temple, and now helps with its maintenance.

The sacred bull who is always present in front of the temple to Shiva, the most important god, and who delivers petitions to Shiva.

Prince Rama from the Ramayana legend

Ray and a sacred cow in front of the temple.

Interior buildings in the temple complex.

Our next stop was a very nice private home in the  Portuguese colonial style. It has a large yard, but is now surrounded by buildings and loud busy street traffic. It has been owned by the Peres family since the 1800's. The original British owner of "Belmont House" died young and the affluent Peres family, who were coffee and rubber merchants purchased the hone for $400 US a few years before India's independence. They are a Christian family, and again the home was beautifully decorated for Christmas.  

The front porch.

A Christmas tree in the living room.

A servant in the house demonstrating the electric coconut grater on the top. She is  using her right hand  to hold the coconut onto the grating cone.  The masala coconut paste grinder is on the bottom, and  uses the large stone  to simultaneously grind the paste.

The Jesuits had a large presence in India, and our next stop was a beautiful church built in 1885 in what is now a large Jesuit high School. The St. Aloysius Chapel is completely covered in beautiful murals and faux finishes which were done by the Italian artist and Jesuit Antonio Moscheni over a span of three years from 1899. It is described as the Sistine Chapel of India. Unfortunately no photos were allowed in the interior.

Exterior of St. Aloysius Chapel.

Our last stop was the Achal Cashew processing plant. Over 500 women work for about $6 a day shelling and sorting the nuts by hand. Most are local women who walk or take the local bus to work. I will never eat a cashew again without thinking of these women working a mile a minute! The cashews are sorted, roasted, flavored  and packaged for export, Oil is also made from the shells, and the remains are made into mulch, so none of the cashew is wasted. 

Women cracking cashew nuts by hand, one at at time. Notice the woman on the right  wearing  a flip flop working the foot lever. Can you imagine 8 hours of that every day for six days a week?

Workers sorting the shelled cashew nuts.

Grading the nuts.