Mysore all decked up for Dasara today

Mangalore Today News/ DHNS

Mysore, Oct 24: Governor H R Bharadwaj and Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar arrived in Mysore on Wednesday morning to partake in the Dasara festivities and the famous Jamboo Savari, the most eagerly awaited event of the ten-day festival.

They had breakfast at Suttur Math at the foot of Chamundi Hill. Earlier, Chief Minister Shettar visited the Chamundi Hill and offered prayer to the Goddess Chamundeshwari.

 

 

The four-kilometer the procession route, from the Amba Vilas Palace to Bannimantap,  is already lined up with people on both sides of the Sayyaji Rao Road. 

 

 

The tenth-day is the Vijaydashmi Day and the festivities inside the palace are underway with the last scion Srikanta Datta Narasimharaja Wadiyar performing poojas to the Banni tree, the Pattada elephant, horse, camel and cow.

A wrestling bout between two jattis (wrestlers) inside the palace wrestling arena where the fight ends when one of them draws  blood first, which is considered auspicious for the royal family has attracted a huge crowd.

The Procession begins from the palace at 1.48 pm with the chief minister offering pooja to Goddess Chamundeshwari, the reigning deity of Mysore, which is kept inside the  weighing 750 kgs golden howdah, carried by the 52-year-old elephant Arjuna who has just replaced Balarama. 

In the evening the Governor Bhardwaj will inaugurate the Panjina Kavayatthu (torchlight parade) at Bannimantap grounds at 7 pm which again is one of the major attractions which is a grand finale marking the end of Dasara for the year.