Colourful women of Tamil Nadu

Being pilgrim season in southern India, it's entirely possible most of these women aren't actually from Tamil Nadu itself. We were in the southernmost city of Kanyakumari (Cape Comorin), and it was extremely heavily pilgrimmed at the time.

Colourful women of Karnataka

And Kerala doesn't actually have a monopoly in this department. It's a similar story all over India, though there are undoubtedly variations in styles and colour. Here are a few pics from the neighbouring state of Karnataka.

Colourful women of Kerala 2

The Kerala part of our trip took in the Wayanad region, Cochin (Kochi), Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram - 7 syllables in the local name!), Kovalam and Varkala beaches, and the 'backwaters' of Kollam, Poovar, and Kumarakom.

Colourful women of Kerala 1

It's one of the (many) things that jump out at you in India, just how colourful and generally photogenic are the women, while most men look quite drab and ordinary alongside them. So, all in the line of duty, I recorded some of these sights on our recent trip to South India.

The lioness? Well she's looking a bit tired, and she's currently in captivity. (This one's in Trivandrum Zoo.) Her name: Aishwarya!

The model in the jewellery ad, by the way, is Priya Anand.