Tipi Sultan's Palace, a Fruit and Vegetable Market, and a Coorg Dinner
The next stop on our way back to Mysore, just on the outskirts, was Tipi Sultan's summer palace. (And check Wikipedia for Tipi Sultan if you want the full history.) He fought 4 battles with the British and lost the third and was killed (and thus lost) in the fourth. This was in the 1780s. Typically, the French provided aid to Tipi Sultan because he was fighting the British. And the general in charge of the British troops in the 4th and deciding battle (from which the French were prevented from participating in for reasons I don't know) was General Corwallis, which shows the British army command didn't take his small loss in the American colonies as disqualification. The curious thing about the palace is that while Tipi Sultan was a Muslim (although technically in a feudal subjection to the Hindu Kings of Mysore) the walls of his palace contain many paintings and murals of people, seemingly in contradiction to Islamic law. When we asked our tour leader about this, he explained that while Tipi Sultan was a Muslin, he ruled over many Hindus and the lines were often blurred. We're finding this a somewhat common occurrence. As I read several times before coming to India -- do not come with preconceptions as they will inevitably be wrong. This seems to be the only generalization about India that is true.
Unfortunately photography at the summer palace is forbidden except at one place where you can take a photo looking out through the front of the palace. So, I did.
Back in Mysore we went to the big fruit and vegetable market. It is reached down a very narrow alley and through some poles sticking up blocking the entrance to anything larger than a human. But there are all sort of carts and such once you are in the market. So I suspect this controlled entrance is to keep people from bringing in carts other than through the approved way. The market is fabulous. There are aisles with different people selling often the same thing right next to each other. Some have carts. Others are on the ground. Still others put out sttractive displays right on the ground showing what they are selling. There is constant noise including people shouting out what they have to sell (at least that is what I think they are saying), there is a canvas cover over the entire market, and the smells are absolutely wonderful.
As you can see, the aisles are crowded with all sorts of people. And while they sell fruits and veggies, they also sell paint pigment and the oil for making paints.
Plus there are also garlands which must be sold by the meter -- and often used as an offering to one or more gods.
That evening we had dinner in a private home where they host dinners for tourists and also have some rooms for home stays as well. It is out in the country about 15 minutes from Mysore. They woman who was our hostess was an interesting person from several standpoints. She had two children from her first marriage and had raised them as a single parent from a very early age, having divorced her first husband. The older girl was finishing up her education doing animation and was probably going to work in Bombay / Mumbai. The younger one was still in secondary school but wanted to be a lawyer. And apparently she was very focused on this and had event befriended several people who were lawyers who had stayed in the house including a British lord judge. Neither of the children were present that night. Her second husband was a ship's captain piloting a LPG tanker for Shell Oil. She told this part of her story in a very manner-of-fact way although our group leader had mentioned earlier that day that divorce was quite rare in India and the divorced woman often had little if any prospects.
The second fascinating thing about this woman was that she was of Coorg origin. There's plenty in Wikipedia about this very small (150,000) group of South Indians. One thing of note is that they wear their saris differently, although I will leave those of you with a better fashion sense than I to determine just how from this picture of her.
The Coorgs are so small that she says they will eventually die out. She herself is married to a non-Coorg -- although we did not ask her if her first husband was Coorg. While Hindu, they Coorgs had some different practices including how they do weddings -- apparently not involving the use of a priest. And dinner was a traditional 11 course Coorg wedding feast. Fortunately there appears to be some good documentation of the Coorgs as our hostess showed us a book on them.
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