By Dr. K. Javeed Nayeem, MD

Our annual Dasara has since time immemorial, been an occasion for much celebration and joy across the length and breadth of our State, although its main nucleus has always been Namma Mysuru, the undisputed ‘Jewel in The Crown’ city of Karnataka.

This State festival has been coming and going with its own kind of clockwork regularity over the years, with very few exceptions, when its grandeur had to be toned down greatly due to some exigencies, the most recent being the Covid-19 pandemic.

Even as I remember, this has also happened on a couple of occasions, in my childhood, especially during war times. But the earliest known record of the Dasara having been completely cancelled was in the year 1816, during the reign of Maharaja Mummadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar, when there was a severe famine across the State. This was done as an austerity measure, in accordance with the hard times the entire population of the State was going through.

The celebration of Dasara, as we all know, has largely been a very smooth sailing experience for us, Kannadigas and all our guests too. But this year’s Dasara seems to be steeped in a few controversies for various reasons, which we can all hope will be sorted out smoothly and amicably, thus making its passage too, a pleasant affair, that will leave behind only happy memories for every one of us, as it has done in the years that have gone by.

Over the past one week though, even as almost all the preparations for the event have been completed and we are all set to start the celebration, it has run into a new hiccup. Although of a very minor kind, its outcome however, can greatly impact the way our city is going to look during this festive season and in the years to come too, depending on the decisions we take and the tradition we set for the coming years.

Some groups of people, with their concern for the well-being and safety of our avenue trees, have raised objection to them being decorated with festoons of electric lights. This has been a fairly recent practice, resorted to only after low-wattage but extremely beautiful LED lights came on the scene. Until then, lighting up the city roads during Dasara was all about putting up buntings of multi-coloured light bulbs on wires strung across them on poles.

This was, in those times, good enough a decoration, that would leave us all enthralled and enchanted. But with changing times, when we look at it with an unbiased mind, we can all only agree that this new idea of ornamenting all our avenue trees with festoons and spirals of LED lights has greatly enhanced the beauty of our city during Dasara time.

Although I am also a very vehement supporter of the safety of our trees, I feel that embellishing our avenue trees with LED lights for a short period, is a pretty safe and harmless practice, which does not endanger them in any way as long as they are not mutilated or pruned unnecessarily.

I’m sure that any qualified botanist or horticulturist will vouch for what I’m saying. And since our Government has announced that from this year onwards Dasara lighting will be extended for a full month, the embellishment of our trees will be the only attraction remaining after the ten-day extravaganza, to the residents and all those who decide to extend their visit to our city during the festive season. If this is taken away, nothing remains by way of an extended Dasara treat.

In fact, this kind of harmless but extremely beautiful decoration is the only treat for most of us Mysureans, who prefer not to jostle, cheek by jowl, with others, either on the Jumboo Savari route or at the Bannimantap Torchlight Parade Ground where it culminates. Doing the latter these days, however takes great resolve, courage and patience of an altogether different kind.

Although newer and newer corrective measures are announced year after year by the concerned authorities, as sure-fire remedies for the utterly chaotic situation that prevails there, none of them seems to work. It looks all fine and reassuring when you read about in the papers, but the scene changes for the worse dramatically, as the deadline for the commencement of the event nears and you near your much sought after destination.

Your exorbitantly expensive gold-pass, that promises you a ringside view of the show, from close quarters, turns into a completely useless scrap of paper, excluding you from it altogether, when you go there only to discover that your seat has already been commandeered by someone else, with greater guts and gusto than you! And, all those who are deployed there to ensure that you are ushered to your rightful place, can only be seen wringing their hands with expressions of sheepish helplessness on their perplexed faces.

That is why, all sensible Mysureans, once bitten and twice shy, prefer to sit in the comfort of their homes and watch the Dasara on their TV screens, from their armchairs, these days! Yes, I last went on this expedition more than two decades ago and came back wiser, vowing never to venture there again, when I saw not just legitimate pass holders but even some specially invited guests too being denied a seat, much to their discomfiture and disgust.

So, for most sensible Mysureans, a great measure of the pleasure of experiencing the joy of their Nada Habba comes from a slow drive across the city, late in the night, through fairyland roads, lined on both sides by illuminated trees that look like they are made of gold and silver. Let us not deprive ourselves and our visiting guests of this magical joy, by stripping our trees of their most attractive and completely harmless embellishments. Let simple common sense prevail, over obsessional activism!

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