Mysore Pravasa (Jamboo Savari)

Starring - Daya, Raaghu, Shetty, Vinod, Full Naggan (Nagi & Sandhya) & Preveen (Pungi)

Thinking how to start off with writing something for Mysore trip (Part II), but not sure how to, cos we had the craziest start ever. The main reason for confusion was that we had Pungi alias bogus alias Tinku alias Praveen with us for this trip and for people who know Tinku this is very common.

10th of October – Trip on Bike
We had plans of going to Mysore on our bikes and Tinku came up with a thought that his Sumo was unused for sometime now and we could use it.

12th of October

Then there were confusions from his home-side and Tinku dropped out and we swapped back to the Plans of the bike. As one of the bikes was vacant for a pillion, Raaghu managed to arrange his friend to come with us. So on Tuesday our mode of transport swapped like this.

12:30 pm Sumo
02:30 pm Bike
05:00 pm Sumo
08:00 pm Bike
09:30 pm Sumo
10:00 pm Bike
10:45 pm Sumo
11:00 pm Sumo(????)
11:30 pm Bike

13th of October
On Wednesday morning (the day of the trip), Raaghu’s friend dropped out with sudden shots of cold & fever. The Guy we feel dropped out as it was drizzling that day and thoughts of traveling in the bike on a rain day must have brought jitters in his bones.

But we had the plans swapping between Bike & Sumo until Wednesday Morning 5:30 am and we got a call from Tinku at that time that the Sumo was available and we would also be coming. So we heartily thanked Raaghu’s friend for dropping out as we would not have managed to continue with the trip on our bikes due to heavy rains. “Aggodella Volledikke”. I and Vinod dropped our Bikes at Tinku’s place, picked up Tinku & his sumo and went to Raaghu’s place. Meanwhile Nagann was waiting for us with his cousin at Mysore road in the rain. The next problem we had was arranging a driver for the sumo. Tinku’s driver was in as much confusion as us due to change in plans. We had to wait for around two hours for the driver to get ready and we started of at 8:00 am (two hours after the actual plan). So we had Nagann, his cousin, Raaghu, Tinku, driver and a Train engine (let’s call it Vinod) with us for this trip.

We fuelled the vehicle and started with the journey. We reached Maddur at around 10:00 am and nothing much happened till then as all of us were sleepy. We had water & Tatte Idlis with Vadas as breakfast there and commenced the journey. After breakfast Nagann & Vinod were in full swing and we have rounds of Raktha Kanneru and many kannada songs.

Vinod seemed to be possessed with Rajkumar’s Spirit and sang with great Zeal. He was exceptional with one song of the movie “Bhagyavantaruu”, it must be “Ninna Nanna Manavu ….”. And Nagann as always was in full flow with Kanta dialogues of “Raktha Kaneeru” and Raghavendra Teertharuu was also good. With all this happening around we never realized we had reached Mysore by 11:00 am.

We dropped in Dayanand’s Place (For those who do not know Dayanand we also call him Tiski Daya) & Nagaraj continued homewards to collect tickets for the Jaambu Savari. We had a royal treat of Bisi bele baths, Jahangirs, Coffees etc. in Daya’s place. After Brunch we went to the place (Near the palace) where the Jumbu Savari had to start. We by luck or chance managed to get seats very close to the Road where the procession had to begin. And this time Nagann was also complete. So it was me, Nagann, Sandhya, Raaghu, Vinod, Tiski Daya & Tinku at the procession. The Procession began at 11:30 and was actually started by Dharam Singh. He was as graceful & slow as an Elephant. After the inauguration by Dharam Singh, the procession began and we had glimpse of different varieties of Doolu Kunita, Kollattas, Vintage Car rally, Vintage Bike rally, Different types of Folk Songs & arts, Karadi kunita and so on. We relished each and every part of the procession and our cameraman Mr. Raghavendra and shot superb shots of the Procession. The Highlight of the procession was a dog which had the privilege of going on the procession more than 5 times. The procession had attracted a huge crowd. (Probably 25 lakhs as the Newspaper say, but I am not sure as we did not have the time to count). The Procession continued for 2 hours until 2:00 pm and ended with Balarama carrying the Statue of Goddess Chamundeswari on the 1000 kg Gold Ambari accompanied with his darlings Rukmini & Mary. Nagann said that Balarama does not carry the ambari with them around. But with all this we also had shots fired from the old canons around a dozen times. These canons sound cool & wonderful when there are not pointed towards to you.

We wanted to head towards Bangalore after the procession, but Nagann had different plans. He somehow managed the tickets of the Panju kunita(Torch Procession or dance). As we had 3 hours time to go. We went to Daya’s place picked up his luggage and went to some old part of Mysore to have “Mylaari Dose”. We saw how the govt officals uses the govt resources for there personal use(it was extreme) and we had our stomach full with the dosas. The Dosas were so good that Tinku who normally has half an idlis for his breakfast had TWO dosas.

We whiled our time & at 6 pm headed towards the Banni Mantapa Ground where the Panju kunita was to be held. We met up with Nagann and his family (Sandhya, his brother & family) there and entered the ground around 6:15. The procession began at 6:45 with the Governor & the Chief Minister entering the Ground. After this there was a Flag salute by the Governor and then we went around the ground in a jeep accompanied with some men on horses doing something I am not sure off. Then the Bugle band(????) started playing the national anthem(in parts) and we had to stand up sit down a couple of time. But it was heart warming to see that a lot of people still respect the national anthem. After when acrobatics of Motorcycles had to begin, our friend the rain showed up. And the whole show went for a toss. People were trying some kind of circus holding plastic chairs over their head to avoid the rain. We some how managed to come out of the stadium but drenched and went towards our sumo. Nagann joined us with Sandhya near the cab. Then at 8:30 pm we started towards after trying to dry ourselves with what ever cloth we got.

On the way back we had jolly good with old entertainers in full swing joined in by Tiski Daya. We dropped in at Sandhya house at 9:00 pm, had Bisi Bele bath as dinner at their house with Shreekhand and proceeded towards Bangalore. Its true guys, we managed to hoax Sandhya for the dinner. We reached Bangalore at around 12:30 pm dropped Nagann, Sandhya & Daya home. After this we had a dilemma, whether Vijayanagar was closer from to Mysore to Bangalore or was it Vidyranyapura. The majority in the cab decided that Vidyranyapura was closer and we dropped Vinod home & then Raaghu heartily dropped me & Tinku home and went home at around 2:30 pm.

I hope the guys who were a part of this trip really enjoyed the whole trip even though rain played a spoil sport with the Torch procession. So please do not include him in the next trip.