By Sharanya Gopinathan
When you read that “don’t ogle” signboards are set to come up in strategic locations, you can tell that the news is going to be funny. But there’s really something uniquely hilarious about a news report that begins with the sentence, “Men take in more than just the scenic beauty when gaze at the waterfalls.”
Karnataka has lots of waterfalls, and many of them are popular among tourists and sight-seers. Tourism officials in Karnataka are now planning to put up signboards in these areas warning men not to ogle at women. Reports indicate that officials are still a bit unsure about how they’ll actually word this warning (and we’re really dying to see what they do come up with), but the intent is to communicate to men that they must not stare at bathing or “frolicking” women. They’re also going to put up signs that warn tourists not to take pictures in “no-selfie zones”.
As Tourism Secretary Naveen Raj Singh said to Deccan Herald, “Women have the right to enjoy the waterfalls as much as men, and this should be respected. We are putting up these boards to ensure women get some privacy.” We don’t know how useful they’ll be immediately, but there’s certainly no harm in putting up the boards, it’s a good message to reinforce to men in different situations, and it’s nice that tourism officials are thinking along these lines and trying to make tourist spots more meaningfully accessible to women. And once the boards are up, of course, nobody can say that they weren’t explicitly warned not to stare. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This seems to be part of a larger drive to popularise waterfalls in Karnataka: the tourism department is also looking to release a guidebook detailing the different waterfalls in Karnataka, and expect some of the lesser-known to become more popular tourist destinations when they do.