Mysore Dasara 2009

“It’s going to be too much crowd” that was probably the first sentence that everyone said when I told them “I am going to Mysore for Dasara this year “(and boy they were right :).

It’s been almost 4 years now since I moved to Bangalore and till now I haven’t been to Mysore once. So I decided to ignore everyone’s suggestion and went ahead with the plan. At first Akshay and Tanmoy were suppose to accompany me but then Akshay had to cancel the trip for personal reasons.

So it was now only me and the always energetic and enthusiastic Bengali boy (I should call him a man but I won’t) Tanmoy (whom I promised to go to Durgapuja with but didn’t go).

As we were not aware of how the schedule is going to be in Mysore so we had booked an early morning ticket from Bangalore City station. I had slept at 2 am that night (I was watching India losing to Pakistan) and I had to get up at 5 am to reach the station on time (which I thought I could never do but I did).

I woke up at 5.15 am and had no time to take bath so just got fresh and I was on the road looking for an auto at 5.30.hmmm so looking for an auto at 5.45 ,what the hell was I thinking, finding auto at 5.30 am in Kaggadaspura is more difficult than finding GOD (I am not exaggerating :). After waiting for almost 20 minutes I got an auto and after a long negotiation we agreed upon 200 bucks (normally its 100) .Reached the station at 6.30 am and met Tanmoy there we had some coffee and we were off to Mysore successfully.

It was around 10 am when we reached Mysore we just walked out of the station and Tanmoy spotted a Volvo; we ran and got in to the bus. We got down at the city bus station which was just behind the palace. Now the next big task was to find a affordable hotel to stay, we decided to walk around the palace and have a look around the area .We walked for an hour or so to find out a hotel, almost all the hotels were packed or tariff was too high but we managed to find out a hotel at a decent price .It was 10 minutes walk from the palace. We came to know that the entry into the palace only starts after 1.30 pm so we just took bath and rested in our room.

It was around 2 pm when we entered into the palace after the security checks. The entry into the palace is amazing; there were two life sized elephant head sculptures hanging on each side of the door. The carving was done with an absolute detail; I could even see the wrinkles on the skin of thee elephant.

The interior of the palace was full of exquisitely carved doors, expansive pavilions, delicate chandeliers, exquisite stained glass ceilings and decorative frescoes depicting scenes from the Indian epics. We also got to see the king’s Darbar. When we walked through we got to see some really awesome paintings done by greats like Raja Ravivarma. The palace was so huge, I was wondering how the hell these people traveled from one room to another, we finished seeing the palace by 3.30 and were really tired of walking. We just decided to take a break and sat on the lush green lawns in front of the palace. We sat there until the horizon ate the sun completely and the palace was looking awesome in that twilight.

We came to know that there was some cultural event at 6.30pm so we rushed towards the stage to catch a seat but we had to satisfy ourselves with the first row of standing viewers. The show began by Ganesh Vandana which was really sung nicely in Karnatic style which was followed by a Bharatnatyam dance by Yamuna Srinidhi which was breathtakingly beautiful.

At exact 7 pm the 97000 light bulbs on the palace were turned on in a flash and it was the best visual moment I experienced in my life. Every light is placed at a precise location to give the viewers amazing visual effect. We walked away from the stage to take some photos and after an hour of photography we decided to call it a day.

We came back to hotel and saw the Durgapuja in Kolkata on TV. You can hardly keep Tanmoy quite when they are showing Kolkata on TV, so I got to know about the Durga Puja and Bengali culture. It’s so awesome that we celebrate the same festival in different manner in different part of our nation. We were so tired that day we didn’t even know when we dozed off.

The next day we got up late in the morning and had a breakfast at a hotel nearby and checked out of the hotel to leave for the palace to see the procession which is the main event. We reached the palace at 11.45 and came to know that no one was allowed inside palace without an invite (We unsuccessfully tried to convince few people for the invite:). Then someone told us that we can see the procession on the KR Circle. Then it was again time for some walk. We took a walk outside of the palace to find out KR circle. On the way we found few police men were making the canons ready for firing to mark the end of the dasara festival. After a long and tiring walk under the sun we reached KR Circle only to see thousands of people already gathered there. And there was a remote possibility that we could see the procession. But again we were destined to see the procession , we met a guy who was having hathgaadi’s lined up so that people can have better view (but it came at a cost) .We paid the guy 100 bucks just to stand on that four wheeler. And now it was time to wait for the procession to start we waited for almost 1 hour on that cart and suddenly we heard 21 blasts of a canon which meant the procession had started from palace.

The procession started with a large number of tableaux representing all the districts of the State.Which showcased the cultural diversity of the State and offered a glimpse of the art and culture of Karnataka. The folk troupes with the rhythmic beat of the percussionists infused an element of zest to the procession following which the elephant Abhimanyu pulled the elephant cart in which the palace musicians were seated playing out a few tunes set in Carnatic style.

After this, the moment for which half a million people gathered arrived, Balarama the main elephant, who conducted himself with grace, with the idol of Goddess Chamundeshwari. There was a spontaneous devotional outpouring from the crowd. This brought to an end of the 10-day festivities.

So we managed to see the Mysore dasara and it was an experience which is going to stay in my mind forever.