Dasara elephants familiarised with cannon fire shots

All fourteen Dasara elephants were familiarised with 21 cannon shots fired from seven Brass barrels at the parking area of Dasara Exhibition Ground on M G Road in Mysuru on Thursday (September 26) around 11:30 am.

All the elephants stayed calm. Though Rohith and Hiranya were mildly distracted when seven cannon shots were fired during the first round, they were fine by the time cannon shots were fired for the third round.

Led by Abhimanyu, Hiranya, Lakshmi, Dhananjaya, Gopi, Bheema, Rohith, Kanjan, Ekalavya, Sugreeva, Mahendra, Prashantha, Doddaharave Lakshmi, Varalakshmi marched to the tunes of Dollu Kunitha, from Mysuru Palace premises to Parking area of Dasara Exhibition ground.

They were offered pooja by Palace Ganesha temple priest S V Prahlad Rao on behalf of Karnataka Exhibition Authority officials, prior to the training.

Later led by DCF (wildlife), Mysuru division, I B Prabhu Gowda, RFO Santhosh Hoogar, Veterinarians, Dr Mujeeb Ur Rehman and Dr Ramesh, all 14 Elephants lined up opposite Brass barrels which were placed at a distance of 50 meters. As many as 30 CAR (City Armed Reserve) staff led by CAR ACP H P Sathish, manned the process. Among them, seven CAR staff equipped with Flame Resistant garments fired the cannons in three rounds.

Soon after the exercise, all elephants marched towards the Brass barrels, to indicate that they were not worried and offered their salutes to the team which fired cannon shots and returned to the Palace premises.

As many as 21 cannon shots will be fired by these Brass barrels during the floral benediction by Chief Minister to Goddess Sri Chamundeshwari Devi housed inside the golden howdah carried by Abhimanyu on Vijayadashami during Jamboo Savari procession.

As many as 21 cannon shots will be fired by these Brass barrels.

Also, another round of cannon shots will be fired during the beginning of torchlight parade at Bannimantap ground when the elephants will be resting after the procession reaches there.

So to acclimatise them to those sounds they were trained on Thursday.

Two more rounds of training will be held on September 29 and October 1, DCF Prabhugowda said.

DCF Prabhugowda said that during the practice session, while the cannon shots are fired at 50 meters, during the procession on Vijayadashami they will be fired outside the Palace, which would be more than 500 meter away. So the Elephants will remain completely calm, he said.

He also informed that Mahendra, Hiranya and Lakshmi will participate in Srirangapatna Dasara, he said.

DCF (Territorial) K N Basavaraj, DCP M Muththuraj, and ACP Palace Board Chandrashekar also participated in the training session.

Mohan, Head Constable at CAR, said that he has been operating brass cannon barrels during Dasara for the past 20 years and it has been a matter of pride and privilege. They had taken all precautionary measures, he said.

After they arrived at Mysuru Palace premises on August 23, the training to familiarise the Dasara procession route for Dasara Elephants began on August 25. Training to carry weight for Abhimanyu and the team began on September 1. Training to carry wooden howdah to them began on September 18.

38 horses including 10 new horses led by DCP Mounted Police Company, V Shailendra also participated in the exercise.

Shailendra who will be the Dasara procession Parade commander participated in the practice session with his horse Kings Power.

He added that all horses remained calm and were under control during the practice session.