Dussera '08

Hoardings, News, Mysorites, all buzzing about the Dusshera. The thought promising an enriching experience were at Mysore during its pompous festival of Dusshera.I have been to Mysore for the summer vacations during my childhood for 3 consequetive years but never had a chance to see the imperial Dusshera procession and the jewel-lit palace in the evening.Never it had been so much eagerness to watch it live, but now when i am held in Bangalore.Those were the days when even a pinch of boredom would lead us to those majestic gates open for all to rejoice the imposing magnificence and splendour of the palace. Watching people from every corner of the world come all the way to see the palace intrigues you you into the pondering over those aspects of the regal palace that you have never percieved before. Now almost 6 years later when time has landed me closest to the gifted city, I embarked on a apparently memorable get-to-gether with the city of palaces. The Karnataka governement had strived to entice as many tourists as each year with few more attractive features like the discounted public transport, additional fleet of buses, free movie airing [Only noted Kannada flicks :-( ] and usual offering like numerous cultural programmes. I would attribute my obseravation of the city bustling with activities especially hightened this year, to the publicity and reporting in the magazines in Bangalore. All seemed perfect for a day's outing ,an Escape from "Alcatraz" until we reached there. Accompanying me was a college who was equalling excited about the procession and the royal elephants pounding the city streets amidst huge crowds. Availablity of buses without prior booking was a welcome note to all the tourists. Reaching Mysore eaxactly at the time of the lunch, we found people rushing towards the heart of the city. After a not so appeasing meal we made our way towards the crowd. Omg !!! All we had heard was that there would be huge number of tourists hoarding on either side of the procession's track. But the sight was much more unpleasing. Owing to recent terrorist bombings and terror scares, there were reports that the foreign tourist inflow had drasticly dwindled this year. The Dusshera organising commitee brushed away the reports and pinned hopes on the turnout expected on the concluding day of the 9-day festival at the procession. Reducing tourist inflow was a glad picture for us as it would prevent being squeezed by the ever-maddening gathering. Even though the same gladness doesnt prevail over for the reducing foreign tourists it too served a cause that now we can watch the procession without any paralleling distraction from the foreign tourists and manage to get a good bunch of befitting snaps of the parade. But the picture was totally contradictory,we could glance a considerable amount of foreigners eying the parade and also not much anticipated mad rush of local residents creating a hulla. The police bastion created a wooden bulwark on either side of the road to prevent the public from entering the track of the parade and hamper the tempo. Gaurds weilding the lattis circled around on foot and vehicles to control the crowd and especially watching over for any suspicious activities leading to disruptions ranging from even a brawl or a bombing. The police vehicles parked near the crowds earned the wrath of the crowd for obstructing the view. The funniest thing was the there were even langurs waiting atop tree branches with also humans greeding occupying the rest. Even a slightest delay would make the crowd unrest and that is what exactly happened. Roars from the crowd defeaned the ears, as the parade was few minutes out of schedule due to an unexpected accident involving the present Honorary Raja of Mysore , Srikantadutta Wodeyar which made him unable to flag of the procession. Later thanks to the breaking of the not so serious custom, the Chief minister flagged off the parade in the absence of the King. Soon a convoy of police vehicles inspecting the track emerged of the palace succeeding the procession. Leading the troupe was an elephant, beautifully colored rather painted asper the whimsies of the artist . Atop was a mahout holding an umbrella., just as a custom and not to shield himself from the schorching sun. Later a group of five such equally brawny elephants made apperance with thundering footsteps. Trained by their mahouts the elephants walked in a synchronous gait, . The din made by the crowd still disturbs the thought of the sighting of the grandeur pachyderms .Following them came fearsome looking men sporting huge moustache , wielding swords and dancing to the tunes of the upcoming band of musicians and regional dancers dressed in saffron , the iconic color of dravidian culture, weilding huge drums orchestraing a well-know tune of regional folk dance. The rest of the parade for until half of an hour composed of neatly made structures of forts, historic monuments and leaders. Worth mentioning was a display of Rani Lakshmi Bai shielding her baby against the wrath of the British.Soon the sultry weather took the toll upon us and my friend beckoned me to take a break or probably call it a day since we were too weared out standing in the sun. We thought of advancing to the palace entrance from where we could see the Golden Howda. We raced through the streets reaching out to the palace gates. Omg !! Our plans of departing satisfactorily after seeing the Howda turned out to be just an iota of glimpse of Gajraj Balram carrying the Golden

Howda. Only on observing the crowd did I realise how poor was our homework before getting here. Anyways having consoled each other upon not able to capture the Howda on our camera, we moved to drop by at the temple. Incidently it was my friend who was persisting to visit a temple apparently to make up for not doing his pooja on the day of Saraswati Puja which incidently was yesterday. It all started when his mom called him up just after we got into the bus for Mysore to check up with him whether he had done his puja yesterday. Struck by his guilt he was desperate to visit a temple to offer his prayings and this led to the pursuit of the temple at the West gate. Much to his chagrin the palace was closed until 5 in the evening. The crowd squeezing into the Vovlo bus heading to Chamundi hills didnt look promising that we could finish our Darshan in time. Never have I seen such a floating population at Mysore during my previous 3 visit, not that i didnt expect crowd but indeed not such a maddening crowd. Even the last hope of making it to the Infy campus not materializing we reached the Inter-state busstand to head back to Blore. We boarded an Airavat bus hoping the fares to be the same as that of our morning journey. " Dei this bus doesnt look like he will charge 134 Rs da machan" was my first thought. We boarded the bus and the conductor handed us a small bottle of mineral water. I was doubtful. " Eshto sir ondhu ticket Bangalore ke" got a reply " Dho Sau pacchas, Agar apko isse bhi kam dham me ticket chahiye tho piche wali gaadi pakdo bhai. Ye Airawat hai". Returing the water bottle we made a speedy exit to catch the bus following this one. " Hey i have seen this guy before" I said. " It the same bus by which we came here da", my friend quipped. confirming the fare, we hopped I hopped into a window seat and sat back and heaved a sign of releif from the heat outside basking under the air-conditioning. "Where are we having our dinner da?" asked my friend jolting me to wake up. Man, never have I dozed off so peacefully. Gobi manchurian and Rotis at the Roti Land a the busstand is the best you could have for dinner at Majestic. Back home, I now filled the void, the last thing that I missed at Mysore amidst all its charming, charismatic and majestic entities.