In Mangalore we have several famous beaches. That Sunday soon after the Dussera festival I went to Sultan’s Battery area. Sultan Battery is situated in Boloor, at the confluence of Gurupur River enetring the sea. It is 6kms away from Mangalore City Bus Stand. It was built in black stones by Tippu Sultan to prevent warships from entering Gurpur River. It is now a tourist attraction frequented by hordes of tourists, but its construction is exquisite. Although it is a watch tower, it gives the impression of a miniature fortress, with its arrangements for mounting canons all around.
15 years before his death in 1784A.D, Tippu Sultan built the present Sultan Battery, which was known as Sultan’s Battery (English word ‘Battery’) in those days. Firing of canons was known as ‘battery’ then. Father of Tippu Sulthan, Haider Ali captured Mangalore in 1763 A.D. Haider regarded Mangalore as of great importance as a naval station and established a dockyard and an arsenal. Mangalore, well fortified and converted into a naval station, could very well be used by him to intercept English shipping on the western or Arabian Sea.
In 1766 A.D, a war broke out between Haider Ali and the English at Mangalore, and the English captured the city without much difficulty. The capture of Mangalore was, perhaps, considered by the British at that time as a very significant event in the history of their expansion in India. On the receipt of the news, Tippu made a lightning attack on the English and took back Mangalore from them.
But the English kept laying siege to Mangalore. This was made easy by the easy access to Mangalore through the route of Gurpur River. The estuary in those days created a sand beach, a situation which promoted the ships to enter. Ships of the East India Company, with the soldiers, had an easy point to enter Tippu’s Domain. In order to control that, for military defense purposes, the Sultan Battery was constructed.
On that day I found few heads of the Durga Idol created out of mud which were immersed after the Durga Pooja festival washed ashore. Tranquil heads of these revered goddess was somewhat disconcerting to watch and interesting to photograph. Just next to this, there was a small TV crewvideo graphing an episode for their soap opera. Sultan Bateery also has few small ferries which takes people to the adjacent beaches and across the river.
Late afternoon sun was still harsh and this gave a pretty brisk business to the nearby Ice gola maker. This shaved ice ball flavored with syrups of unknown origin are a great delicacy and one of my daughter’s favorite snack whenever we visit. Even though I don’t like the taste of all the syrups they pour over on the ice, their carts are so colorful they are feast to my camera. All the photos here are captured using Canon EOS 5D Mark III fitted with Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L II IS USM
Next few photographs are from a beach nearby closer to Udupi called Malpe. On that beach I saw a cart which was roasting corn cobs and what attracted me is the fire and the color of the corn which is almost getting burnt instead of roasted in that high flame from his hand wound air turbine. Light from setting sun along with fire gave a nice color to this corn.
Churumuri is Kannada name for puffed rice, but it is also the name of a spicy street snack prepared with puffed rice, grated carrot, Shredded raw mango, shredded tomato, roasted peanuts, shredded onion, lemon juice and red chilli powder. All these ingredients are mixed together with coconut oil and sold in cones of old newspaper. You can see so many street carts selling churumuri and many stand in queues to enjoy the taste of it. This is loved by both kids and adults. The most important point to remember is to serve and eat churumuri immediately to enjoy the Puffed Rice crispy and spicy taste. What I caught here is the the process of mixing all these ingredients including the motion blur. This and the above photo of the corn was photographed using the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0 L IS on 5D Mark III.
