About 20 years ago, I visited the waterfalls at Sivasamudra in Karnataka state, India. At one viewpoint,  there was a  fence to which padlocks had been attached. The fence was special; it surrounded the tomb of a Muslim saint.  I had never seen anything like this before.

I asked our well-educated driver, Rahim,  about the locks. His explanation was that people  who had a wish that they wanted fulfilled, attached a lock to the fence and discarded the key. Their belief was that when their wish was granted, God would unlock the padlock.

 

Some years after visiting Sivasamudram, I began noticing bridges in Europe to which padlocks had been attached, often in great numbers. Each lock usually bore a name that had been written on it. These locks are known as ‘love locks’. Their supposed origin was at a bridge in Vrnjačka Banja in Serbia in 1914 (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_lock). Loving couples place padlock is on a bridge or railing, and throw away the key. The lock is placed to symbolise their undying live for one another, rather than to fulfil a wish, such as hoping for a baby or  a spouse, or success in some other venture,  as Rahim explained to us at Sivasamudram.

 

Some bridges have had so many locks attached to them that the weight of these attachments can threaten the structural integrity of the bridge.

 

Today, 15 September  2026,when visiting the navigli – the canal network of Milano in Italy  – I spotted neat clusters of lo e locks, which looked a bit like bunches of misshapen grapes. Seeing these lo ks brought back memories of my visit to Sivasamudram,  and inspired me to write this.