Dasara Festival

The ten day dasara festivities in India concluded just last weekend. Given the work schedule and other things, I did not even realize when Dasara started and how it ended. Going back 3 decades, Dasara used to be one of the major festivals at my place. We would place our collection of antique wooden dolls, clay models of various gods & godesses and so many other fancy items. We would also create a small artifical "forest" with lots of plastic animals in them. Most of the traditional dolls were inherited. 2 pairs of couple dolls, made out of rosewood were the center of attraction. I was told they were at least 150-200 years at that time. My grand father was very popular in Mysore for displaying his collection of dolls and paintings during dasara time. Schools recognized Dasara period as a half yearly milestone in the annual calendar. We would finish our half yearly exam just before dasara and enjoy the mid term holidays which co incided with the dasara festival. We also would go around other houses in the neighbourhood to look at their display of dolls. I vividly remember my cousin taking me to one house in Tyagarajanagar, Bangalore where the entire ground floor of the house was full of dolls. They had displayed so many dolls, it almost looked like a doll shop instead of a house!. Half yearly holidays took us either to my grand father's house at Vyalikaval, bangalore or to the Dasara capital of Karnataka - Mysore.

My grand father's house at Vyalikaval would look like a family reunion with my cousins joining in from other locations. Our favourite past time would be taking care of our younger cousin, giving him bath, play with the dog Johnny or head out for long walks to Palace Orchards or Malleswaram or go to one or two movies. Palace Orchards was (still is) home to the famous film stars and politicians. My cousin used to show us around in this area, he some how knew most of the famous houses out there.

Our dasara holidays in Mysore was a different kind of a family reunion. As we descend on our ancestral home, there would be steady stream of visitors. Many of dad's siblings and other relatives lived within 2-3 miles distance and we used to get lot of invitations for breakfast, lunch and dinner. With so many cousins, I personally enjoyed shuffling between various houses, playing various games and enjoying the food specialities of each family. Once, one of my aunts took us once to the Khas darbar at the Palace and we were amazed at the grandeur of the Mysore palace. We watched the darbar from the near distance, the royal throne looked impressive. As we grew, other priorities came in and we gradually scaled down our dasara celebrations.