The people along coastal India exhibit vast diversity along an underlying commonality as a result of its coastal topography and sea trade between west AsianMediterranean traders along its west coastline. The region includes Gujaratis in the westernmost region, Kannadigas, Tuluvas, Goans and Maharashtrians along the Konkan coast or the western coastline, Malayalis in its southernmost region of South India, the Tamilians along southern Cholamandalam coast, the Telugus and Oriya people along the South eastern coast through Utkala Kalinga region along the Coromandal coast, and the Bengali people along the easternmost coastline along the Bay of Bengal.
Thriving Sea Trade and intermingling
A thriving trade existed between the Mediterranean world and Coastal Indian regions This led to significant intermingling between the people of Coastal India and the west asian world, particularly along the South West Indian Coastline along the Arabian Sea. Several west Asian communities have also settled and become part of the diversity of coastal south west India. These include the Parsis, Bohras and Baghdadi Jews in the westernmost region, the Bene Israel along the South western region, the descendants of mediterranean traders along Coorg and Mangalore, the Jonakan Mappilas along Malabar region, and the cochin jews and Syriac Nasranis along the southernmost region of South India. The Chola Empire established vast Tamil influence across South East Asian region across Indonesia, Java, Bali and Sumatra. This brought South Indian Heritage to Cambodia, Indonesia and Bali where the Balinese Hindu traditions still thrives. This also lead to intermingling between coastal India and the south east Asia particularly in the South eastern Cholamandalam coastline along the Bay of Bengal.
Heritage
The linguistic diversity of Coastal India includes languages of the Dravidian language family including Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Tulu and Kannada; languages belonging to the western zone of Indo Iranian language families including Gujarati, Marathi, Konkani, languages belonging to the central zone of the Indo-Iranian language families including Urdu and Persian and languages belonging to the eastern zone of Indo Iranian language family including Oriya and Bengali. The region also has speakers of Semitic languages like Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic. The common elements of the people of coastal India includes cuisine that consists of agrarian and coastal products and clothing that involves long flowing drapes with bare midriff for both men and women suited for humid and warm climate. Throughout coastal India women wear drapes called saree in various styles. In the western corner of the region the drapes are called as Dhoti for men. and Chaniya choli for women, further southwards the drapes are called as lungi or mundu for men. and veshti for women. Women experience relatively more role in social system as compared to non coastal peninsular India and enjoy significantly more prominence in society than non coastal non peninsular India. Towards the southernmost tip of coastal south western India the social system was considerably more matri-focal. This is also manifested in feminine deity oriented festivals and rituals celebrating Shakti or feminine power like Navratri festival among the Gujarati People, Thiruvathira festival among the Malayali people and the Durga Puja of the Bengali People.
