Growing up in Bangalore, every Dussehra’s buzz was around the grandeur of Mysuru’s Dasara procession. On my bucket list since the travel bug bit me in adolescence, I was about to realise my dream of watching the royal procession in all its splendour, this year.
“I would really love to watch it as a commoner and not from a position of privilege”, I told my friend Ashwati, while we mulled over our possible purchase of the ‘Golden VIP tickets’.
Eager for adventure, she and I didn’t take long to negate the idea of being ostentatious guests of the Mysuru royal family. We wanted to feel the heat as we believed that the only way to learn from travelling was to be simple, local and organic with our choices.
Reserving tickets to and from Mysuru, we boarded the 7 am train and clutched our bags tightly to our bodies as we entered a bogey with an unanticipated volume of travellers.
It was all good till then. We smiled and made our way through to our seats.
Finding just enough space for ourselves on the long rectangular blue seats spilling with people, Ashwati assured that I needn’t worry about it for too long. “The TC (Ticket Collector) will handle it. They never entertain unticketed passengers”, she said giving my aching back some solace.
But two hours into the journey where our only respite from the littering and noise was Karnataka’s beautiful countryside, there was no TC insight. We only had an hour left to reach but we didn’t see any reduction in the number of people who hopped on to the train and arrogantly demanded that we make space for them on the seat we righteously paid for.
Adjust maadi, is universal and to be honest, Ashwati and I aren’t snobs who wouldn’t be accommodative in a situation of genuine need. But the entitlement with which, men and women alike, intimidated us into twisting our legs and backs for their unticketed tailbones, was extremely unpleasant, to say the least.
Finally, reaching hot and humid Mysuru, she and I weighed our options. Our backs were clicking with every step due to the unnatural acrobatics we forced it into. “Do they rent hotel rooms by the hour? I would really like nothing more than two hours of sleep”, Ashwati said blankly.
“But Ashu, we need to go to Chamundi Hills. That is where the pooja happens and it is going to end soon. We need to hurry”, I fumbled with panic while rapidly turning to find an empty auto.
We failed to catch a ride by ourselves and decided to walk towards the main road to find buses and other ways to get to our destination. As we walked under refreshing canopies, we saw at an interval of 10 metres, families and tourists were spreading mattresses on to the footpath and lodging themselves with their entire party on the coloured area as if demarcating the space as their own.
We realised that they were securing places for viewing the procession, surprising us with the commitment to do so just at 10 o’clock in the morning.
On our failure to find a ride with hand waves and broken Kannada, we booked a ride to Chamundi Hills through Ola. The chatty driver told us that he may have to ‘pay extra’ for the trip uphill and requested that we compensate him. I promised him that if anyone charged us for entering the area, we will take care of it and then began spending our time in his vehicle in awe of Mysore’s natural beauty.
Chamundi Hills didn’t look the same as I remembered from my first visit to Mysore with my family. A lot had changed and I couldn’t figure if that was good or bad.
On reaching the gates of the temple our driver demanded with utmost egotism that we give him Rs 50 over the fare amount, when he wasn’t charged anything additionally.
We tried reasoning first, but ended up bitterly getting off of his vehicle, upset over his audacity to call us ‘liars’, ‘loafers’, and ‘cheaters’.
I was still troubled because of the argument and it had only been a few seconds since we left him when I felt a fat hand pinch my backside. I looked up in horror and wondered for a second if I had imagined that. I turned to see if anyone was in sight but the entrance to the temple wasn’t crowded at all.
Looking at me being unusually quiet, Ashwati immediately probed my mood and craned her neck to see if she could find the offender.
Her eyes caught the sight of two men, hands around each other’s shoulders, sucking on their lower lips, narrowing their eyes to accompany it with a curt upward shake of the chin symbolising a nonchalant ‘what?’.
Not only had those men groped me outside a temple but they stood in our view to amuse themselves with our reactions of bewilderment and shock. I considered confrontation but the stance with which those rogues stood, I feared that I might be beaten black and blue for doing so. I merely held Ashwati’s hand and hurried our pace towards the temple at the top.
We reached the peak, but couldn’t get ourselves to appreciate anything that was in view. The horribly crowded train, the auto-driver’s attempt to extort, the men who groped…
