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As you enter the pristine,
Hidden and unknown beaches of Mangalore,
The sudden first sight of bright,
Sky like blue water activates all of your body senses.
It is rare to see such beauty when you are used to see the shores flooded with plastic and waste. And even if it is clean, you don’t expect the muddy water to be blue. After coming across such beauty, you feel like hugging the beach by surfing on such waves. But it is a little hard for a cricket obsessed country to accept surfing as a sport.
Surfing is slowly picking up with more and more people enrolling for surf schools and learning to surf on the offbeat coasts of India. The waves may not be as huge, but foreigners are moving here to escape the overcrowded hot spots such as Hawaii, Bali and Australia. "There are more than 1.2 billion people in India. How many people do you see in the water? Hardly anybody," said the guru, Jack Hebner, 70, a tall American known as India's "surfing swami."
Hebner brought India’s first surfing school 12 years ago, popularly known as Surfing ashram. It is located in Mulki, a town near the port city of Mangalore. Since then, he has taught hundreds of Indians how to surf. "Fishermen's children and city millionaires sit down and eat together at my ashram, with a surfboard between them," Hebner said. This weekend, Hebner's less visited beach was flooded with thousands of visitors when the international competition ‘Karnataka Surfing Festival’ came to town.
This competition, which is recognized by the International Surfing Association and Surfing Federation of India and is supported by Karnataka Tourism, was held at the Sasihithlu beach from May 27 to May 29. The 'All Cargo Indian Open of Surfing' 2016 saw surfers from Goa, Tamilnadu, Karnataka, Mumbai, Lakshwadeep along with international surfers from Australia, United States of America and France.
"It has been our constant endeavour to promote Mangaluru and Karnataka's coastal line as an international surfing destination. It's a great moment for all of us to have finally been able to host the inaugural edition of the 'All Cargo Indian Open of Surfing'. We would like to thank Karnataka Tourism, Govt. of Karnataka for their support to host the event and create such a novel property. Through this event we plan to promote local talent and in future help generate employment opportunities for the youth. We are hopeful that this event will be the beginning to many other international and national surfing events in the state and Karnataka will soon find a place in the international surfing map," said Kishore Kumar, President, Surfing Federation of India.(ANI)
Source – NDTV
PS - The next surfing festival called ‘ Indian Surfing festival’ which will be held on the sands of Ramchandi on Puri-Konark Marine drive, Puri, Odissa. The date is 12th Nov, 2016.
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