Mysore Dasara 2010

My attempt to see the Dasara celebrations in Mysore last year was not well planned, this time around i wanted to make sure that i witness the 400th Year of Dasara Celebrations. Mysore city as we all know is famous for it heritage. How can i forget few history chapters that i read in school which spoke about the great Tipu Sultan, Hyder Ali and many others. Mysore as a city is famous for many reasons. Be it, Temples - the famous Chamundi Hills, Bird Santury - Ranganathitu, Fort in Srirangapatana, and the very famous Mysore Palace and adding to it is KRS dam, which was the brain child of Sir M. Vishweshwaraiah.

My plan was to visit Mysore on the last day of Dasara which happened to be a Sunday. Got in touch with my friends Depu, Kishan, Sony & Mansi on Wednesday and checked if they want to join me. Depu and Mansi dropped as they had some work. Panda ( Sony) said he has work and did not commit. I & Kishan agreed that we going since others dropped. Kishan happened to call Vivek ( we call him Scienti) late night on Saturday and he agreed to come. With three of us confirmed, we planned to leave Bangalore at around 10.30 in the morning after finishing breakfast at home. All set, i confirmed that my Dad was willing to provide the car for the one day trip. With about an hour left for us to start our journey to Mysore, Sony's mom happened to call me and said she wanted to go to Mysore on some personal work and checked if we can accommodate her in the car. I was very much willing to and Panda agreed to join us at the last moment.

Count of 3 became 5 at the last moment. Sony's mom called Kishan and convinced him to leave at 9:30. All set we started out Journey to Mysore. Cracking jokes, making fun and recollecting some fun times, Kishan & Panda narrated my famous KFC order in Goa to Sony's mom and Vivek. We stopped at Jai Bhuvaneshwari hotel near Srirangapatana for lunch. Panda told me it's a pretty famous hotel and film actor Ambrish frequents this place.

We reached Mysore at 1:00 PM in the afternoon. We had to wait for about 30 minutes as Panda's relatives had to arrive and Sony's mom had to join them.

While waiting i spoke to few locals standing near a tea stall and enquired about good places that we can visit to see the celebrations. We wanted to see the AMBARI and off course Mysore Palace when the lights would have been switched on in the evening. I was informed that going to Mysore palace would not be feasible as there would lot of people and getting a decent place to watch the AMBARI proceedings would be difficult and more over we did not have the tickets to get inside. We were told the AMBARI seva would end in BANNIMANTAP and following that there would be some activities inside the BANNIMANTAP stadium. There was a catch as we had to get tickets to go inside the stadium and we were told the tickets were sold out. Kishan happened to call a relative who was on a visit to Mysore and luckily they had 2 tickets with them for the planned activities in the stadium and his relative was willing to provide two tickets to us as he was returning to Bangalore. We now had to worry about arranging 2 more tickets. We decided to camp in Bannimantap so that we can see the AMBARI and heard towards the stadium in the evening. While Kishan and Panda waited for Kishan's relative to arrive so that they can collect the tickets, i and Vivek wanted to take to chance and find out how we can manage to get tickets.

The road that leads to Bannimantap is one big stretch. There were barricades on both sides and general public had to stay inside the barricade, while the middle area was reserved for many activities as part of Dasara celebrations. I called up my cousin who is a Mysore localite and checked if he can arrange any tickets, he said he would check and call me back. Vivek happened to call one of his relatives who confirmed that he can get us two tickets. Somewhat relived that we managed to get four tickets, we were all happy. In no time it was 4: 00 in the evening and we could see people rushing  to witness the procession. If i am not wrong there were more than 3,000 people at this big stretch. I could see people trying to find comfortable places to ensure that they get the best view of the celebrations.This meant people climbing on the walls and even trying to find comfort at the terrace of houses, sitting on trees which were situated at the stretch.

We somehow managed to find some space and stood there witnessing the different processions that went on. They were more than 50 presentations in the procession, they highlighted the culture, historical places, people who have contributed significantly to the society ( like Sir MV & Sir Puttaraj Gavai) .

  

 With loads of noise, drums the much awaited AMBARI arrived. "Balarama" the elephant carrying idol of goddess Chamundeshwari and the golden crown weighing 750+ kilos arrived. I was seeing this for the first time and it was very good experience. History has it that it will rain during the last day " VIJAYADASHAMI"  and it did. It did rain for pretty heavily for about an hour and continued drizzling, however by the time AMBARI came in Rain Gods showed some courtesy and the rain stopped completely :).

Having seen the Ambari, we headed towards the stadium. On the way we happened to meet few Yakshagana artists who politely obliged for few pictures :)

We entered the stadium and got seated in a comfortable place. I never imagined that what i would be witnessing would remain in my memories life long. With more than 4,000 people inside the stadium it looked a very energetic evening. Proceedings began with an orchestra band singing some patriotic songs and there were some guests as well. Mr Yeddyurappa having had a very controversial political battle was present and Karnataka Governor as well.

Police battalions gave different performances, like a standing ovation to the National Anthem and Composing National Anthem vocally and by different musical instruments, followed by gun shots which signified some message. I had seen the bike stunts that were performed during the Dasara festival on television, this time around i got a chance to see it live. With more than 40 bullet vehicles and over 20 performers, guys belonging to a particular police battalion started performing different bike stunts. It was really nice to see it up and close.

    

 Bike stunts were stunning, specially the scissor cut, where bikes from four different angles pass over at a center point without crashing. Following the bike stunts, were some more performances by the orchestra band, laser show. What caught everyones attention was the " TORCH LIGHT PARADE" - In this over 300 police personal dressed in white hold a thick stick which is lit up with fire on top ( Just like that Olympic stick), stadium lights are switched off and all you can see in the center would be the men dressed in white holding the stick which is lit up with fire. They go on performing different actions which lead to some formation of a theme. To name a few they form in different ways to display a message saying " JAI HIND" " JAI KARNATAKA" " VANDE MATARAM" and many more. It was truly mesmerizing to see them perform in the middle. I could not take pictures since there wasn't enough lighting that could have supported my camera.

Towards the end, we got to witness the fireworks welcoming the "DIWALI"  - VIJAYADASHAMI is celebrated saying " IT is the Victory of Good Over Evil" . Having seen the all the proceedings, we decided to head towards Mysore Palace to see the lighting which is one of the main attraction, we were informed that the lighting's would be switched on until 11:00 PM, we reached there by 10: 30 and found the lights switched off :( uhhhhh i was disappointed. We decided to head back and stopped at a place for dinner. Having finished dinner, we started our journey towards Bangalore and reached home by around 3: 00 in the morning. It was a event full day, we were thank full that we got the opportunity to witness such a great event. I was unhappy over the security arrangements inside the stadium, i am not sure if it was taken seriously. I did not find a single metal detector when we had to pass through a gate to get inside the stadium after presenting out tickets and i do not recall seeing armed police men patrolling. Well i guess they were all mesmerized with the things happening in the middle. Thankfully everything went well.

I will leave you with some pictures.

More pictures on http://picasaweb.google.com/Vinay.justin/Dasara2010#

Take Care...