Devaraja Flower Market, Mysore
Devaraja market was an assault on the senses – all of them.
Housed in a heritage building built in 1886 during the reign of Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore, and named after a ruler from the Wadiyer dynasty it sprawls over a huge 3 acres with over 1100 stalls and is one of the largest markets in Karnataka.
The market opens before sunrise and continues all day, every day with more than 5000 people involved, from stall holders to suppliers to owners, plus thousands of customers.
You enter beneath stone arched passageways lined with jewellery shops, all bright lights and gold bangles and barely enough room between to walk through. There’s a replica entrance on each of the four sides, making it very confusing, ‘….we came in this way…..’, ‘no we didn’t, we haven’t walked in a circle……or have we?’
Beyond the entrance the labyrinthine ailes widen, slightly. And it’s heaving. Sari clad shoppers jostling between stalls whose produce spills out at top, bottom and sides. The tightly packed crowds and spotlights illuminating the stalls make walking extremely difficult and extremely hot and sweaty. Lovely…….
It is hugely colourful. Pyramids of violet, cerise, jade and yellow powder paints sculptured to perfection and spooned carefully into newspaper twists sit next to stalls laden with the natural greens, reds and pinks of the fresh fruit and veg. A step away are the aromatic spice stalls, stacked with bottles, incense, barks, powders and stone-like fragments of frankincense. But the flower section was my favourite.
Rows and rows of stalls, housed in tiled alcoves where sellers sit in splendour surrounded by bright blooms. Down the centre runs a huge stone bench, buried beneath mounds of flower heads, all kept cool (relatively speaking) by the constant sprinkling of water that ran off into channels beneath our feet.
Flowers are brought to the stalls in massive canvas bags, precariously balanced on men’s shoulders as they weave their way amongst the throng shouting ‘Side, Side’. It didn’t help being tall and your face being just the level of the bags! More bags arrived on an overladen wooden cart that squeezed through the aisles as shoppers jumped out of the way to avoid their toes being squashed.
Bright sunshine yellow marigolds piled high on the stone bench were picked one by one and carefully strung onto long garlands that were coiled into metre high spiral structures.
Fragrant white jasmine, the queen of flowers in Mysore, were strung into elaborate celebration garlands and hung overhead, their sweet scent perfuming the air with the constant buffeting from passers-by (or large camera bags – not naming any names there). These were the flowers women were wearing in their hair at Mysore Palace, perfuming the air and masking any smell of sweaty socks and bare feet.
A beautiful, shadowed stall had rose and chrysanthemum heads in all shades of red, from deep magenta, through crimson and scarlet, to dusky pink, their petals glistening with the water droplets keeping them fresh.
Exquisite circles of white and pale pink lotus buds lay in trays of bright green leaves, their blooms just starting to show from their tightly packed buds.
After sunset, at the end of each long day, the market is handed over to herds of local cows to wander through the darkened, empty alleys feeding on the remains of the flowers, fruit and vegetables. Very sustainable.
It was a fabulously atmospheric place, if ridiculously hot, with friendly vendors calling ‘Hello, Where are you from?’ And yet the powers that be, i.e. the council, in their wisdom, want to demolish the building and replace it with a modern one. Hopefully, all those campaigning to keep the heritage will win. Otherwise, it could be gone in just a few months and so we’ll have been very lucky to experience its wonders.
Helen (30th March 2025)
Wonderfully written you made .me feel as though I was in the midst of the blooms and could almost smell them
Thanks Carole. You’ve have loved it. Maybe not the heat though!
It looks noisy, vibrant and colourful. The flowers are mesmerising.
It was all that – pity we can’t get across the smell though. It was fabuous.
Great read there Helen, quite sad to hear about the building and the possible loss to all that history and community. Looks amazing! The colours look nice and I can only imagine the tastes (of the food, not the flowers) are pretty amazing too.
Thanks David. Yes it would be tragic to lose something like this due to a few unscrupulous operators. Let’s hope it survives……
Sounds amazing, and love the fact it feeds the local livestock. Where do I sign the petition to keep it open xx
It’s really sad, but it looks like it’s probably doomed
This looks lovely, the flowers are amazing although I was wondering why they all look to be just the flowers/buds but assume it is because they use them mainly to make into garlands? What or where do the garlands get used? Love that the cows get to enjoy them too! but sad to hear it might be replaced.
The flowers are mainly used for offerings. As to why only the buds – no idea, but more for the cows to eat
Beautiful photos. Cows parading through muck like Beverley……..
Badly timed typo much rather then muck obvs….
In this case I think muck is very appropriate……if not in Beverley
Such beautiful colours – these photos must justify the large camera bags! 🙂
Thanks Angela – it’s definately a price worth paying