Sultan Battery or Sultan Bathery 

Once again the three of us (Clinton, Nikita and me) headed to another place in Mangalore called the Sultan Battery, which was one of the places to visit on my list.

Note: It’s advisable to set out to such places post 3:00 pm at this point of the year, in Mangalore, because the humidity would kill you.

A little history about this place:

Sultan Bathery was previously known as Sultans’ Battery constructed by Tipu sultan.  Sultan Battery is situated in Boloor, 6kms away from Mangalore City Bus Stand. It was built in black stones by Tippu Sultan to prevent warships from entering Gurpur River. Although it is a watch tower, it gives the impression of a miniature fortress, with its arrangements for mounting canons all around. It is quite an inexplicable structure.

Why the name Battery?

15 years before Tipu Sultan’s death in 1784A.D, he built the present Sultan Battery, which was known as Sultan’s Battery (English word ‘Battery’) in those days. Firing of canons was known as ‘battery’ (English word battery, again) then. 

At the bottom of the fort was a small path that was sealed from the outside and had a board inside it as shown in the picture. There is an underground chamber found at Sultan Battery, which was constructed to store gun powder, since storing gun powder required a dry place. According to archival records, there was a grinding stone too, which was used to grind and prepare the gun powder. But the grinding stone is not found now. Over a period of time Sultan’s Battery became Sultan Battery for the localities and has continued to be so, in the process losing the very purpose it denoted in its name. The most interesting part is the myth that the path leads to SriRangapattana, Tippu Sultan’s capital city. It was locked so we could not explore further.

Further down you have a fishing dock, and there are boats that would ferry you to the other side of the lake.  The cost is Rs.3 per trip. On reaching there you would find a small church built for the localites as shown in the image.

 Further ahead, approximately a km away is the beach called Taneerbavi. There was a  ship wreck located not too far away from the shore. The ship named Den Den sunk on June 23 2007.  It was confirmed that the ship had come to New Mangalore port on Friday June 22 2007 in the evening to fetch slag from KISKO. Later in the night owing to heavy rains and thunderstorm ship moved towards Tannir Bavi and soon began sinking.

There is a restaurant near the dock with a huge menu painted on their wall. I could not get most of what was painted on it so did not want to risk it. 

Although a lot of people are seen visiting such places not a lot of officials or authorities take the pain in maintaining this spot. For a tourist or an outsider this would probably be a turn off. Blackish water and a lot of garbage are to be found in and around the spot.

 Nevertheless it was indeed good evening for the 3 of us and definitely worth the time and the money spent :)