My Dasara belongs to my childhood which I spent in a far away jungle surrounded village of the Sahyadri mountain region. An old man called Ballal would visit us sometimes walking miles and miles in the forest paths. If he appeared with an akshatha mark on his forehead it meant he had eaten. If he did not my mother knew he would stay on for his midday meal. All the family would sit on mats in the verandah and hear him tell stories. He was a great narrator of stories and we waited always for him to begin the story of his visit to Mysore to see Dasara. And he never failed us.

It was long long ago that he visited Mysore and saw the Dasara festival and Jamboo Savari but every time he retold the story there would be something new in it. The story was always narrated in the present tense; and every time the royal elephant and the Maharaja wore more resplendent jewels and the Maharaja smiled differently to the waving people. Sometimes Ballal was inspired by our intent listening, and on such occasions, the Maharaja even smiled at him--"'at this your old uncle of dark skin'"-- as he took care to wearing a zari shawl for the auspicious occasion.. He even carried that shawl to impress us.

There used to be a Festival in a nearby village once a year when the presiding deity of the village went around driven on a chariot. This was a colorful festival where we drank gurgling soda and ate sweets and more importantly saw a show. Someone always came with a box and we called it Bombay box. We paid an annah (the price of a cup of coffee in a good hotel) and peeped through a hole. The Bombay-box-wallah danced ,beating rhythmically on the drum, pulling a string and showing a new slide each time. I can never forget these slides seen through a magnifying glass. He danced and announced: ' Look oh Look this is Delhi…. Look Oh Look this is Queen Victoria…, Look Oh Look this is India Gate…, Look oh Look this is Bombay prostitute…, Look Oh Look this is Maharaja in Jamboo savari.' How true was Ballal, I felt.

But I witnessed Dasara for the first time when I went all the way from my home in Tirthahalli traveling first on a bus and then in a third class railway compartment thus spending a whole day and a whole night. Of course I went to Mysore not to see Dasara but to study in the great legendary Maharaja College where Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and the less known Hiriyanna were professors. Kuvempu who was an anti-royalist was a teacher there when I went to study and under his influence and the influence of the Socialist movement in Malnad I too was anti-royalist. I had by then outgrown Ballal and his magical Dasara tales, and the peeping wonder of the Bombay-box.

Shantaveri Gopala Gowda was a great socialist leader who had come under the influence of Lohia and JP. We thought that taking the Maharaja on an elephant was a feudal custom and a sign of our backwardness and superstition. The socialists had started an agitation against the Jamboo savari. Under the leadership of Gopala Gowda came young socialists like JH Patel (our Ex-CM) to Mysore and gathered a bunch of volunteers and carried inauspicious black-flags to wave at the bejeweled Maharaja riding on the decorated elephant.

This was dangerous for the Socialist Satyagrahees. People loved the Maharaja and the procession. They would have beaten up the socialists carrying inauspicious black flags. But we sought police protection to wave the flags as a symbolic gesture of our protest. This went on year after year.

But I do not want to stop here. Shantaveri Gopala Gowda was a great sensitive person with the heart of a poet. After the Maharaja lost his office and his feudal glory Gopala Gowda met him once in some airport. He felt great compassion and respect for the forsaken looking, utterly impractical Maharaja who was almost alone amidst a crowd of people.