MYSURU, Oct 2 : The city streets of Mysuru carried the weight of memory and celebration today, as the Jamboo Savari procession brought this year’s Dasara to a close. What unfolded was not only the state’s famed festival but also a story of belonging, devotion, and resilience stitched into the lives of those who gathered along Raja Marga.
People leaned against barricades, stood shoulder to shoulder on narrow footpaths, and raised their mobile phones skyward – as if trying to hold on to something fleeting.
Children sat on their parents’ shoulders to catch a glimpse of Abhimanyu, the 59-year-old tusker whose slow, deliberate steps bore the golden howdah and the idol of Goddess Chamundeshwari.
When Chief Minister Siddaramaiah showered petals on the Goddess, there was a hush before the elephants lifted their trunks and a 21-cannon salute cracked the silence. For a moment, the festival became less about grandeur and more about reverence.
The procession, 5km from Palace to Bannimantap, was stitched with colour and noise: drummers, folk dancers, tableaux carrying stories of Karnataka’s districts. Brief showers fell, dampening the air but not the mood. People shifted, pulled shawls tighter, but remained where they were – unwilling to surrender their view of the passing pageant.
Abhimanyu, flanked by Kaveri and Roopa, moved through the streets with a commando guard at his side. For all the security, there was an intimacy to the moment. People didn’t just watch an elephant; they watched history, continuity, something larger than the everyday. And when the procession wound past, leaving behind echoes of music and cheers, the city itself seemed to exhale.
Dasara in Mysuru has always been more than a festival. It is a reminder of the ties between people and place, of faith that continues despite change. Today, as the last notes of the Jamboo Savari faded, the people of the city carried home not just photographs, but the assurance that tradition still holds them together.
(UNI)
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