Marchés sur terre - The best markets on earth
Mysore flower market (India)
Directed by Bruno Boulianne, Yvonne Defour, Marie-France LavalS2 • E1 Jan 5, 2017
Flowers bring colour to Indians' everyday lives, as well as being part of every major life event. They are deeply rooted in the entire country's cultural and religious traditions, but nowhere else are they as important a trade as in Mysore, in Karnataka state. The region boasts fertile soil that produces more than 75% of all flowers sold in the country. For 120 years, the Devaraja flower market has immersed more than 20,000 daily visitors in a sea of vibrant colours and intoxicating scents. The market opens at dawn every day of the year. It has some 150 flowers vendors, offering chrysanthemums, jasmine, roses and other blossoms sold in bulk or in garlands for women to wear, honouring the gods or celebrating rites of passage. With a flower auction every morning, small vendors' exuberant stalls, hand-crafted garlands, a nearby vegetable farm, offerings to the gods and the making of rose-petal jam, the market is an entire community that lives and thrives around the bustling flower trade. In India, flowers please the gods as much as they do people; their ubiquity brings communities together and fills the air with sweet harmony. Get ready for some flower power with this colourful episode.
