Vedavyasa and Valmiki stand out as most ancient authors of scripts which represent a rich legacy of literary wealth with messages that are relevant for all times. Their successors in later generations up to modern times who lived in different regions of the country in the range of monarchs to mendicants such as Ashoka and Adi Shankara, have enriched the land’s history and invoked as icons inspiring people to uphold and sustain the country’s image of excellence. Mysuru too has its share of those icons who have immortalised themselves by their deeds at different times.

While advances in science and technology have witnessed emergence of devices with amazing capabilities heading towards safe travel to other planets, the deeds of the land’s ancient rishis and reformers are no less amazing, considering how they traversed wide areas and communicated among themselves and people at large.

The task of enabling successive generations of the land to keep the pace of progress in its widest meaning falls into the lap of their immediate predecessors. Mysuru provides an ideal example of that process of progress given the lineage of personalities with their record of life’s deeds. One can effortlessly recall names of those icons, many with identity and the rest unsung and unhonoured. Teachers, doctors, seers, litterateurs, luminaries, authors, administrators, entrepreneurs, mentors, home-makers, sportspersons, pundits, legal practitioners, traders, orators, engineers and the anonymous fraternity who provided services at doorsteps making Mysuru of yesteryears a virtual heaven on earth.

Mysureans of the past periods that figure among the galaxy of people standing tall in the myriad pursuits are the true icons to be invoked in the fond hope that the city can be a model of live heritage and not merely a city of heritage structures.