A Mysuru Dasara elephant.
Credit: DH Photo
Mysuru: Trained for 47 days, all 11 caparisoned Dasara elephants, decorated with attractive designs in colourful paint, covered with joolas over their back, were the cynosure of all eyes in the Dasara Jamboo Savari procession, in Mysuru, on Saturday.
Amid the cheer of the electrified crowd and rain for over one hour, they marched majestically with all composure on the 5 km Raja Marga (procession route) from Mysuru Palace to Bannimantap grounds.
Although 14 elephants were trained, only 11 participated. Rohith, Doddaharave Lakshmi and Varalakshmi remained on the Palace premises.
While Dhananjaya marched as Nishaane elephant, in the forefront of the procession, Gopi followed him as Naufath elephant. Prashantha, Sugreeva, Mahendra, debutant Ekalavya, Kanjan and Bheema were 'Saalaanes'.
Flanked by Lakshmi and debutant Hiranya, wearing Singoti on the tusks, chaamara on ears, hanepatti on forehead, dibba on legs with nails coloured in golden paint, Abhimanyu carried the golden howdah for the fifth time.
After the procession began at 2 pm, Abhimanyu stood between two rows of over 3 metre tall metal stands, near the residential area of Mysuru Palace.
A special team, comprising Akram, and others lifted the 750 kg golden howdah, by tying a rope to it, from a special crane. They placed it over the cushion of namda (made of coconut fiber), gaadi (made of hay straw) and chaapu (made of coconut fiber, thinner and smaller to match the size of wooden howdah) on Abhimanyu and covered it with a colouful joola.
The procession route for howdah elephant Abhimanyu was changed within the Palace premises. The distance increased by 445 metres. From the left side of the Palace, where the golden howdah was tied, Abhimanyu moved till Trinayaneshwara temple, turned right, passed on the road of Jayamarthanda Gate, moved till Gayathri Devi temple, turned right and moved towards the decorated podium in front of the Palace by 5 pm. After the floral benediction by the CM, he continued the procession.
Officers behind the show DCF I B Prabhu Gowda, RFO Santhosh Hoogar, veterinarian Dr Mujib Ur Rehman and others accompanied them. Forest officials like Director (Project Elephant) Ashok Kumar Pandey, Chief Conservator of Forest Malathi Priya, and DCF K N Basavaraju joined them.
Decoration
Drawing teacher at Government High School, Panchuvalli, Periyapatna taluk, Nagalingappa R Badiger, who has been decorating the Dasara elephants from 17 years told Deccan Herald that he started painting on Friday night, around 12 am and completed by Saturday afternoon, around 12 pm.
Six more artists R B Arun, R B Narayan, Madhusudan, Ravindra, Pradeep and Manish joined him.
They decked up the ears of the elephants with designs of shanka, chakra, forehead with Soorya Chandra, trunk with gandaberunda, edge of the trunk, legs and tail with designs of creepers and flowers, parrot above tusks, and leaves around the eyes.
They drew white outlines and filled them with yellow, red, orange and green natural colours.