Mysore Dasara: Impromptu drive to see the famous festive celebrations

Lovely lights everywhere, tons of food stalls and snacks being sold, music, sounds, balloons, lighted headgear, lighted accessories on people's dresses, it was all one big celebration.

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A couple of days ago, on the 5th day of Navaratri which was a regular working day, I was attending back to back office calls as usual for a busy working day. I had calls scheduled till late evening that day.

For some reason, a couple of evening calls got cancelled, and it turned out that my last call for the day would end at 5pm. I would be free at 5pm.

With absolutely no plans (not even remotely on the back of my mind) of driving anywhere that day, I just checked with my wife about what time she would be free that day. She said her last meeting ends at 5pm too.

So suddenly a thought came to my mind - why not drive to Mysore that night to see the famous Dasara celebrations and lighting across the city? I asked my wife if she would be game for a Mysore drive that night. Her first reaction was that I was being crazy as usual and this was a crazy idea. But after explaining the plans to her, she liked the idea too and she agreed.

The main attraction was the Mysore Palace lighting, which is lit up from 7pm to 10pm all ten nights leading to Vijayadashami.

We have been to Mysore uncountable number of times before, and have seen the lighting at the palace too (it is fully lit up weekends from 7pm to 8pm or so, even outside Dasara days), but the fun of being there in the Dasara celebrations was still extremely exciting.

So at around 1pm that day, I quickly booked a hotel in Mysore, and made this plan: we would start driving at 5pm. Hopefully reach by 7:30pm. Spend next few hours exploring the night celebrations across the city, come to hotel and sleep, and next morning drive back to Bangalore, still in time for our morning meetings!

Absolutely out of the blue, from a totally routine, mundane, busy working day, we stole a drive and a one night vacation, without having to take any time off from our scheduled work calls! And it all happened in a matter of 20 minutes!

Nothing ever goes 100% according to the plans and this one was no exception. My wife's last meeting of the day ran late, and it was already 5:30pm when we started driving to Mysore. I was worried we might be too late, but decided to give it a shot anyways.

When we hit the NICE road, the traffic there was insane. NICE road is our usual road for all our drives, but we almost always drive out at around 5AM. We had never seen this mess on NICE road in the peak evening hours, and it was insane. That was the slowest drive I had on NICE road in a long time.

Thankfully, our worst fears - that Mysore road might be jammed due to Dasara travelers - turned out to be totally false! Mysore road was all empty - Ours was the only car at the toll both, for example - something I have not imagined. This total empty highway to Mysore was a pleasant surprise!

By the way, all this happened so hurriedly that without much thought, I had chosen to drive my Thar instead of my BMW 320d. No reason. Just like that.

So we started cruising comfortably in our Thar with cruise control set to 99km/h (Mysore road now has super strict speed checking and they enforce a speed limit of 100km/h throughout). The whole road was empty! We had a beautiful 6-lane highway, with nice views of the highway ahead, totally empty road, lovely landscapes around, and now it was past sunset and we had that lovely blue light shining across the sky! We loved that drive so much that we thought that drive itself was worth the trip, even if we do not get to see anything in Mysore! This was the best Mysore drive I have had in a long time.

With no traffic on the way, we reached Mysore by 7:45pm. We quickly checked into our hotel, parked the Thar there, and took an auto and headed to Mysore palace.

And then, for the next 3 hours, we just walked around experiencing the amazing lights and the festive ambiance. It was a great experience! In the end, we loved it so much and we were super glad we made those impromptu plans.

Every intersection in the city was decorated like this and had a festive ambiance, buzzing with people:

Beautiful lighting everywhere:

The fully lit up palace:

The above photos are taken with my mobile phone. I was also carrying my APS-C DSLR camera and a super compact 50mm f/1.8 lens for the night photography. I chose this combo for the compact size and light weight, so that I can carry this around in the crowded areas.

Now I took out the camera and tried some photography with the 50mm f1/8 lens.

A closer look at the palace lights:

Another view of the palace:

The front side of the palace:

A closer view of the front side:

At the front, they had built a theater kind of thing - wooden steps to sit on and a theater in front (and hence you can not see the full front in the photos; half of it was blocked by this theater they had built). There, some live music and dance programs were going on. It was quite crowded there. But we stood there and watched for some time. Then they also started rehearsing for the main Dasara procession which would be on the main day of Vijayadashami.

Dress rehearsals of the Dasara procession:

View of the front side, with crowds buzzing around it:

Parting shot of the palace through the buzzing crowd:

Then we walked out of the palace, and saw a vibrant festive atmosphere outside on the main road. It was full-on festive mela. Lovely lights everywhere, tons of food stalls and snacks being sold, music, sounds, balloons, lighted headgear, lighted accessories on people's dresses, it was all one big celebration. We absolutely loved the ambiance!

Across the street, this major exhibition is held, which is one of the attractions of Mysore Dasara festivities:

Even the parking lot across the road had a wall full of lighted decorations, like these examples below:

A giant dancing doll:

Another square in the city beautifully lit up:

A parting shot of the lit up structure:

We had three hours of absolute fun time walking around there. The energy and the festive mood in the crowd was amazing to see, and it was surely so infectious! We felt charged up ourselves.

After about three hours of that exhilarating experience, we took an auto and came back to our hotel. Had a delicious dinner of "akki roti and engekai gojju" (rice roti and spicy brinjal gravy) and went to sleep. Next morning we got up early, had a quick breakfast, and drove back home. We reached home well in time for our work schedule in the morning!

Thus, with absolute zero plans of any travel, on a busy work days, we were able to steal an impromptu one night vacation (without having to take any time off from our work), and loved every moment of it! The twilight drive to Mysore with zero traffic was a pleasant surprise and the short time we spent in Mysore was even more fun than we had hoped for! Overall a lovely trip that I am sure I will remember for a long time.

Well, that is it from a very short and a totally impromptu drive. Thank you very much for reading, and Wish you all a very Happy Dasara!

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