Did really Arjuna killed a mahout ?!

It was widely reported in media that Elephant Arjuna had trampled mahout to death. The question is did really Arjuna killed a Mahout late in 1990's! According to eye witnesses mahout Pasha of Sarla elephant and mahout Ramu of Gajendra elephant, on that faithful day the person who died in the incident is not Mahout, while its Kavadi Annaiah.

They say, earlier elephants were taken for a bath at Karanji Lake and were brought back to the Palace daily. The day when the incident occurred, Mahout of Bahuddur elephant had gone to collect payment, and Kavadi Annaiah rode the elephant.

“Always when we take elephants for walk we place female elephants in between of male elephants. But that day, in hurry Kavadi Annaiah placed Bahuddur elephant in front of Arjuna, which led to clash between the two elephants.”

“When Arjuna hit Bahaddur from the backside on the way, all of a sudden Bahaddur lost the balance because of the slope. Kavadi Annaiah who was not seated properly on back of Bahaddur lost his balance and felt to the ground. At this unexpected turn of event, the Kavadi was trampled beneath the feet of hind legs of Bahaduur or it might be from front legs of Arjuna which is even today mystery,” says Pasha the then Kavadi of Sarala.

While Mahout Ramu, who was then Kavadi of elephant Kokila says

“the mistake is of Kavadi Annaiah not Arjuna. He had not placed himself properly on the head of elephant. During the clash he fell down and might be stamped by Arjuna as he was following Bhaddur. Moreover, Wild elephants tramped persons very vigorously, but this incident was merely an accident and not an act of violence are rage by Arjuna. As Arjuna was standing next to him, the news spread as wild fire that Arjuna has trampled the mahout.”

When contacted Veterinarian Dr Nagaraj he said that Arjuna is very soft and though he might had killed a person, it might be accident. Anyways, after the incident an permanent bathing pit was built inside the palace.  

Did really Arjuna killed a mahout ?!

It was widely reported in media that Elephant Arjuna had trampled mahout to death. The question is did really Arjuna killed a Mahout late in 1990's! According to eye witnesses mahout Pasha of Sarla elephant and mahout Ramu of Gajendra elephant, on that faithful day the person who died in the incident is not Mahout, while its Kavadi Annaiah.

They say, earlier elephants were taken for a bath at Karanji Lake and were brought back to the Palace daily. The day when the incident occurred, Mahout of Bahuddur elephant had gone to collect payment, and Kavadi Annaiah rode the elephant.

“Always when we take elephants for walk we place female elephants in between of male elephants. But that day, in hurry Kavadi Annaiah placed Bahuddur elephant in front of Arjuna, which led to clash between the two elephants.”

“When Arjuna hit Bahaddur from the backside on the way, all of a sudden Bahaddur lost the balance because of the slope. Kavadi Annaiah who was not seated properly on back of Bahaddur lost his balance and felt to the ground. At this unexpected turn of event, the Kavadi was trampled beneath the feet of hind legs of Bahaduur or it might be from front legs of Arjuna which is even today mystery,” says Pasha the then Kavadi of Sarala.

While Mahout Ramu, who was then Kavadi of elephant Kokila says

“the mistake is of Kavadi Annaiah not Arjuna. He had not placed himself properly on the head of elephant. During the clash he fell down and might be stamped by Arjuna as he was following Bhaddur. Moreover, Wild elephants tramped persons very vigorously, but this incident was merely an accident and not an act of violence are rage by Arjuna. As Arjuna was standing next to him, the news spread as wild fire that Arjuna has trampled the mahout.”

When contacted Veterinarian Dr Nagaraj he said that Arjuna is very soft and though he might had killed a person, it might be accident. Anyways, after the incident an permanent bathing pit was built inside the palace.  

The ups and downs of Dasara festivities

Every year new events are being added to Dasara to make it more interesting and keep in line with the recent happenings. Though this year several events evoked good response from the public, some of them failed to make any impact due to lack of publicity, while others drew strong criticism by pro-Kannada activists terming it as 'Saffronisation of Dasara'.

Lack of preparation and dearth of publicity led several events to receive luke warm response. Even after coming out with 27 sub-committees, several of the programmes were not planned well and there was lot of confusion among event organisers. Below is a list of ups and downs of the Dasara.

One positive impact of this year's Dasara was that dozens of local artistes got a chance to show-case their talent with events organised at six venues across city for nine days of the Dasara festivities.

The regular events such as Makkala Dasara, Food Mela, Dasara Heritage Walk, Yuva Sambrama, Raitha Dasara, Flower Show, cultural programme for handicap, Kite Festival took a center stage. The newly introduced programmes such as Magic Show, Suryaninda Chandranedege (Dawn to Dusk), an 12-hour cultural programme and the Yoga Dasara held at palace received a good response.

Wrestling witnessed a good crowd due to challenging bouts between seasoned wrestlers. Though Dasara Film festival was inaugurated with lot of funfair, due to lack of publicity the response was moderate. Same with the Mahila Dasara too. Even the Dasara Market Watch intended to draw the people's intention failed miserably.

There was no fee for the some of the adventure sports, unaware of it the turn out of people was very less. Even the 48-hour cycle race was also called off mid-way.

Events that failed miserably to attract people were the Dasara Kavi Goshti, Vidwat Goshti and Dharmika Dasara as there was a lot of opposition to these events. 

Tribal women drew attention of on-lookers on procession

 Its not only the men, whereas women and children in equal number took part in dasara folk art programmes walking with bear feet, unmindful of burning sun.

Specially youngsters below 14 years were witnessed in majority of the folk art and groups, depicting the tradition and culture of their region. The folkart dances, Lambani Dance, veeraghasi, Kolatta, Dollukunitha performed by tribal women drew the attention of on-lookers.

Though some women artistes were quite tensed as it was the first Dasara they were taking part, they were seen stepping enthusiastically each step in the beating heat.

Girls who performed Veeraghasi under the banner of BGS Veeraghasi Nruthya Sangha said that as soon as their participation in the dasara events was confirmed, the group members have practiced daily for about two hours, without any break.

Valli says “After hearing I have been selected to perform Veeraghasi it brought me lot of joy. From last one month I have practiced for about two hours every day, without any break to maintain the stamina for long time.”

Devara Gudda and Pooja Kunith staged by folk Art Students of Mysore University was bewitching. The students who staged equally to professional artistes, climbed the ladder holding the 45 kilo Pooja Kunitha in mouth.

Another folkart 'Jagallige Mela' which was performed by youngsters and elders was quite different. The artistes put steps for traditional songs standing over Jagallige mela (round thin drum), which will be carried by two persons. Apart this, in many of the folk arts troupes children and women were seen putting steps to traditional folk art beats.

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Please provide us water to drink

Some of the artistes who seemed tired before reaching Ayurveda Circle, requested government to quench their thrust by provide water to drink. Though some how men can manage, for women its not a easy task.

Jyothi who is taking part in dasara event for fourth time said that “until we reach Bannimantap we will be tired. The government should take measures to supply water at least in any three points on the dasara procession route.”

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Food for elephants !

The officials were seen serving tired elephants at KR Circle, Ayurveda Hospital Circle with nutritious food, which contains Sugarcane, Jower and Dry Coconut.

Police Officer Raghu said that as per the guidance of Mahouts they will provide the nutritious food pack for elephants, which will be tired.

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As soon as the Arjuna passed KR Circle carrying the 750 kg golden howdah, people rushed on the roads breaking the barricades. Some of the family members to escape from the crowd, accommodated themselves in a safe place. But their slippers, water bottles, were seen littered every where in KR Circle. Meantime, cops to were seen finding hard to control the crowd. 

Yuva Sambrama, Food Mela a big hit in dasara festivities

Yuva Sambrama and food mela turned out to be a big hit this year in dasara festivities. The events went of well, much beyond the expectation, attracting people in large number.

As this year with the state reliving under drought the authorities cancelled the Yuva Dasara and conducted Yuva Sambrama. The event drew lot of crowd, especially the youth and students
Yuva Sambrama which began with popular beads of songs, being played out by enthusiastic performers at Open Air Theater for week long, drew a large number of students every evening.
 
Even foreign students from Afghanistan, Lovas in Vietnamese, Mauritius, and youth of 40 countries gave performance, while received a loud applauds from the people. The crowd went into raptures very often after witnessing the programmes. In all, a wide range of dance-drama and music was performed by students of about 120 various colleges.

There was a very special events like hip-hop, folklore, dance, fusion of traditional and western dance, retro to metro, and several other programmes with new theme steal the show. This time seating arrangements were made separately for women, family members and youth.

Food Mela
The other event which draw the equal crowd was the food mela. The entire venue of CADA premises was jam packed with people, often found it difficult to stand and eat.

People were seen standing in long queue, waiting patiently to relish their favourite dishes. As majority of the food items were moderately prices, both veg and non-veg, this was the other attraction for people to taste as many varieties of food they could feast upon.

Traditional food preparations from coorg, Andhra, West Bengal, Kerala and other places were set-up exclusively at the fair. One best feature of this year food mela was provided with handwash basin and drinking water facility. The sad part is lack of cleanliness. The entire premises was littered with waste, creating a ugly scene.  

Gadag artistes educate people about modern surge 'AIDS'

 A team of twelve members service minded artistes from Gadag, have descended on Mysore for dasara, not to take part in any events, but for a noble cause. They are putting their best efforts to spread awareness about this modern surge called AIDS by traditional methods.

As large crowed will be visiting Mysore to watch world-famous Jumboo Savari, the artistes have made best use of this. Wearing traditional dresses, depicting AIDS as goddess of death entering into households, the artistes are creating awareness among people about control and prevention of AIDS, through folk songs, skits, short plays, magic show, Kamsale, Dollu Kunitha, Folk Songs, Veeraghase, and Yakshagana.

Three women members of the troupe dance and sang together conveying the message not to maltreat AIDS victims, but instead look after them humanely. Their scripts, songs, thought providing narration of plays, drew the attention of people in large number. The gathered people were seen greeting the troupe for their campaign against AIDS.

Through folk songs, skits they are informing people about importance of usage of condemns, and other prevention measure to be taken-up for safe sex, problems faced by HIV positive, the way society treats them and much more .

Team Leader D Prakash said that its need of the hour to educate people about AIDS. “When awareness spread through theaters, it reaches very effectively to people and even easy to make illiterate aware of the issue.”

The troupe is involved in sensitising people by staging street plays based on various social issues from long time. In Mysore, they are organising this event at 150 places across the city, twice in a day starting from October 16. The shows ends on October 25.

The troupe thanked District Health and Family Welfare Department and District AIDS Prevention and Control Unit for providing them the opportunity to stage plays during dasara.  

Traditional doll placing culture disappearing in Mysore

The traditional way of making dolls at home and displaying them during the Navaratri, is slowly vanishing as now women choose readymade dolls to display, which are available in contrast colours.

Earlier, majority of the women who were displaying dolls at home, used to create the dolls months before the Navaratri, based on their theme. But now availability of readymade dolls with glossy finishing, bright colours of various shapes has made them to purchase dolls from the shop.

The other thing which has influenced women in large number is taking part at dasara doll competitions. In one side it has encourage more number of women to place dolls at home upholding the tradition, while in other side the traditional practice of placing dolls is melting down.

Thought the availability of ready-made dolls had brought cheers in many, some of them feel sorry as the traditional practice is disappearing.

Some have retained century-old dolls provided for them by their ancestors. But, majority of the women who have recently started placing the dolls, throng for gift shops in search of the dolls.

“From our childhood we were thought to decorate dolls and place them. But, from last four years I am purchasing the ready-made dolls due to my age factor,” says, Hemalatha who places dolls from three decades in Mysore.

“The available ready made dolls are very attractive and have eased our works. Based on the concept, we can purchase the dolls. Though it can be created at home, the finishing will be rough and looks odd. This year, I have highlighted struggle of freedom fighters, for which I have used the ready made plaster of Paris dolls, which looks naturally,” says Jayashree resident of Vidyaranya Puram.

Ramsons which displays dolls at its gallery, is receiving overwhelm response year to year. Named as 'Bombe Mane', dolls brought from across country, are placed under one roof in this gallery.

  

Palace to generate power from Footfall

World Famous Mysore Palace, which attract lakhs of people every year, will shortly generate power from footfalls. For the first of its kind in India, innovative measure has been taken up by Palace Board to generate power from footsteps and to connect the generated power to grid.

If every things goes as per the plan by Deepavali major of the palace bulbs will be illuminated by the power generated through footsteps.

Palace Board Deputy Director TS Subramanyam said that every year 36 lakh people visit Palace and about 7000 in week ends, the foot falls slabs placed will be very helpful to generate power.

The power generating slabs which will be waterproof will be placed in flooring. It will be in the form of tiles which replaces flooring.

When anyone step into it power will be produced. The generated foot power will be enough to illuminate most of the bulbs in palace. By the initiative of this programme, the electricity costs will come down to higher per cent at Palace, say Palace officials.

  

Cycle to light up Mysore Palace

Now, just pedal to illuminate Mysore Palace. For the first of its kind in history of county, District Administration in association with Palace Board and Private Telecommunications launched 'Cycle to light up the Mysore Palace' programme at Palace premises in city on Monday.

About ten stationary cycles have been placed at Mysore Palace premises, to encourage visitors to pedal as long as they wish. The cycles have been connected to a dynamo, and the generate energy will be stored in the batteries and will be used to light up a portion of the Mysore Palace during Dasara.

If the ten cycles are pedaled for ten hours continuously, about 1500 watts of power is generated from which about 1000 bulbs can be illuminated for about one hour. Generally to illuminate the bulbs, about 2000 units of power is needed.

At present the entrance gate of the portion have been connected with these batteries and from Tuesday, the bulbs will be illuminated by the generated pedal power. If a persons pedals for about 10-15 minutes he can generate power for a bulb to glow power.

Palace Board Deputy Director TS Subramanyam said that one megawatt power is used every hour to illuminate around 99,000 bulbs which are of 15 watts.

Deputy Commissioner PS Vastrad said that the efforts to promote cycle-to-work culture in the city and cycle to light up the Mysore palace are the innovative and eco-friendly gesture towards the cause. He said if good response is received, measures will be taken to place more cycle in other places of palace premises.

Though the bicycles will light up only a part of the Mysore Palace, it's an eye-watching demo of the advantages of using bicycles and encourage the visitors to the palace to do their bit for eco-friendly illumination.

Medicinal plants to cure the ailments of livestock’s

Though villagers graze their cattle in fields, many of them are not aware of the medicinal properties of the plants and which particular plant species to feed upon if the livestock’s suffered from any ailment.

In such a scenario, for the first of its kind, Mysore Milk Union (MYMUL), started the Medicinal Plant Garden in July 2011 on an acre land in Alanahalli, where various types of herbs and shrubs having medicinal properties are grown.  

The name of the plant and its medicinal properties have been displayed in a board under each plot in Kannada to help farmers. Not only livestock’s are benefited by this, whereas even humans can use some of this plants for ailments.

Seeing the tremendous response it received, Mandya Milk Union is also planning to develop a similar plot in its place. Plots are ready in Mandya and planting will be taken up by the end of this month. In addition to this various kinds of hybrid fodder for the cattle will be grown exclusively on a six acre area.

Around 80 different kinds of medicinal plants are being grown in the garden.

Plants like Chakramuni used for the treatment of ulcer; Hippli fruits and leaves (piper congum) for treating cough, respiratory problems, headache and throat infection, Limbe Hullu (Lemon Grass) also used for treating coughs; Adu Soge a plant whose roots and leaves are used to stop bleeding caused by minor cuts
and various other plants that are grown here will be given away to farmers free of cost.

“The majority of the plants grown in the garden can be seen at village side. We will educate farmers and ask them to use medicinal plants apart from allopathic medicines. Both humans as well as domesticated animals,” says MS Lakshmi Prasad Yadav of MYMUL.

“After visiting this garden, I got an idea how to use plants easily available in our own backyards for treating minor ailments before visiting a Doctor,” says Mangala, woman farmer of KR Nagar.

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Meet the man behind the project

HJ Jagadeesh an agriculture graduate is the brain child of this project who is also Manager, Procurement and Input, Mandya Milk Union. Jagadeesh took up the initiative to grow medicinal plants when he was posted in Mysore Milk Union (MYMUL), which he now wants to replicate in his new posting at the Mandya Milk Union.

He said, “when I was posted at Dakshina Kannada, I visited Parampara where I observed that cattle and other animals suffering from minor ailments were treated by feeding them with plants having medicinal properties. Impressed over it, I thought of developing a garden exclusively for growing medicinal plants in DK. Due to lack of suitable place it remained a dream. Only when I was transferred to Mysore, I was successful in realising my dream.”

'After witnessing the tremendous good response the medicinal garden received in Mysore, now I am starting a similar garden one in Mandya too. Youth should be made aware of the plants and shrubs that grow around us and their usefulness. Consuming such medicinal plants will help strengthen our body's natural resistance in the long run,' he added.

PhD on Mysore Dasara by Dasara special officer

Many of them witness Dasara every year. But very rarely few of them go in deep. In such here is a persons, being a dasara special officer inspired over Dasara activities has completed his PhD on Mysore Dasara.

V Ranganath, is the Dasara Special officer. Being completed BSc, LLB, MA in History, he is rendering service as dasara special officer from last eleven years. Inspired over dasara activities which will be held in the palace, he decided to do his PHD on 'Mysore Dasara' (KSOU), under the guidance of Rangaswamy.

He says, Dasara celebrations has history of thousands year and not 400 years as mentioned. “Navaratri celebrations being held from the tenure of Vijayanagar Period and there are lot of documents to prove this.” He has collected the details for his work visiting Hampi, Srirangapatna, and many other places, including libraries.

According to him Dasara celebrations came to practice based on tax collection. Earlier, kings used to distribute Kingdom into many parts and used to handover the position for Privypurse (Samantha Rajas), who used to administer the Place. Even the military were divided into two portions, where portion of military near Privypurse and other near Kings.

Every year during the time of Navaratri they used to come to palaces to offer 1/3 of the tax for king, where entire troupe used to join together and spend time for nine-days in palace.

After staying at Palace for nine-days, they used to leave palace on ninth day of Navaratri. While giving adieu to them folkarts, local artistes, dance troupes were invited, where in it was marked as procession, according to history.

Interestingly, the cultural programmes were introduced during the nine days of Navarati celebrations by kings to enthrall the arrived guests to the palace and also to provide opportunity for local artistes.

After administration came under government, Privypurse system was abolished. Government started celebrating dasara from 1973 and there on wards Special officers were appointed.

“Lot of changes in dasara celebrations has taken place. Its now being celebrated without any formats. To know in depth how earlier kings were celebrating dasara, I decided to do my Ph.D. “There should be frame work to celebrate dasara,” he adds.

Theaters have stopped screening Tamil films

After the Cauvery river water dispute reached a flashpoint, theaters in the city have stopped screening Tamil films. Not only Mysore but also neighbouring districts Mandya, the hotbed of Cauvery agitation  Chamarajanagar bordering Tamil Nadu, have voluntarily banned screening of Tamil movies.

Though several blockbuster movies have been released in Tamil from last two months, many of the movies are yet to be screened in theaters
of Mysore, Mandya, Chamarajanagar, which could have run to full houses here.

Not only Theater whereas even Multiplex in Mysore DRC and Satyam have decided not to screen any Tamil movies till the Cauvery issues final verdict being awaited from the Supreme Court for October 30.

The sudden switch over to screening movies of other languages has caused a lot of hardship to some theater owners who were exclusively screening movies of a particular regional language like Tamil, Telugu or Malayalam. Either way there business has taken a beating.

Mysore District Theater Association President Ajit Kumar said that screening of Tamil films were stopped right from the day the agitation broke out. Mandya Theater Owner Srikanth added that screening has been stopped in five districts Mysore, Mandya, Chamarajanagar, Hassan and Coorg.

Padma and Rajkamal Theater which screen maximum numbers of Tamil movies have been severely affected. Rajkamal Theater owner Jeevan Kumar says, “our theater is popular for screening Tamil movies. But from last one month our business has totally come down.” Pashwanath of Padma theater says: “The collection has totally come down and only some amount of tickets are sold. To attract people we are screening Telugu movies.”

Mysore Theater Association Secretary Rajaram said that as per the governing rules the theater owners hold responsible and held for any mishap that occur inside the theaters many of the theater owners are not ready to take any chance and are meantime extending their support to farmers.” While some in support of the agitating farmers have stopped the screening of movie, it also true that some fearing untoward incidents stooped screening movies on their own, he added.

Though the verdict comes favourable to State, following Kannada Rajyothsava the theater owners can't screen other languages movie for another one week, which is followed every year during Rajyotsava.
 

Huge loss for businessmen this dasara

Dasara meant to be roaring business for many tradesmen, specially for craftsman and handicrafts. But, the recent decisions of District Administration not to honour chief guests on the dais with traditional Mysore Peta, Kashmiri Shall, Sandalwood Garlands as part of austerity measures to cut down the costs which is said to be running into lakhs of ruppes, has cost severe loss for businessmen. The decision was taken following drought.

Many of the traders have stocked sufficient quantity of petas, shalls, and other gifts articles making huge investment, not anticipating such a move by the District Administration. Majority of the businessmen said that they have to keep the stocks for next occasion.

Cauvery Emporium Manager Ranganath said that every year during dasara they were having a roaring business of Rs 1.5 to 2 lakh. But this year it has cut down to Rs 80,000 to 90,000 and there is a severe shortage in footfalls for emporium.

“This year our business has affected in large extent. Specially from last one month the day cauvery agitations began, the number of visitors coming to city has come down. The emporium in palace premises is also facing huge loss,” he added.

Loss for local serial set sellers

The conventional small bulbs have been dispensed with led bulbs from this year. As per the decision taken by District Administration to celebrate eco-friendly Dasara and to decorate traffic islands, monuments and prominent buildings with LED bulbs serial sets, it has cause huge lose for traditional serial set sellers of city.

Officials who are happy with the move say, its very helpful to educate masses to use maximum amount of LED bulbs to save energy as well as to cut down the cost.

According to Dasara Illumination Sub-Committee President Ramesh the illumination work has been given for contract to a firm and said that the serial sets have been imported from other place.

  

Huge loss for businessmen this dasara

Dasara meant to be roaring business for many tradesmen, specially for craftsman and handicrafts. But, the recent decisions of District Administration not to honour chief guests on the dais with traditional Mysore Peta, Kashmiri Shall, Sandalwood Garlands as part of austerity measures to cut down the costs which is said to be running into lakhs of ruppes, has cost severe loss for businessmen. The decision was taken following drought.

Many of the traders have stocked sufficient quantity of petas, shalls, and other gifts articles making huge investment, not anticipating such a move by the District Administration. Majority of the businessmen said that they have to keep the stocks for next occasion.

Cauvery Emporium Manager Ranganath said that every year during dasara they were having a roaring business of Rs 1.5 to 2 lakh. But this year it has cut down to Rs 80,000 to 90,000 and there is a severe shortage in footfalls for emporium.

“This year our business has affected in large extent. Specially from last one month the day cauvery agitations began, the number of visitors coming to city has come down. The emporium in palace premises is also facing huge loss,” he added.

Loss for local serial set sellers

The conventional small bulbs have been dispensed with led bulbs from this year. As per the decision taken by District Administration to celebrate eco-friendly Dasara and to decorate traffic islands, monuments and prominent buildings with LED bulbs serial sets, it has cause huge lose for traditional serial set sellers of city.

Officials who are happy with the move say, its very helpful to educate masses to use maximum amount of LED bulbs to save energy as well as to cut down the cost.

According to Dasara Illumination Sub-Committee President Ramesh the illumination work has been given for contract to a firm and said that the serial sets have been imported from other place.

  

Dasara is mating time for palace elephants

This might be strange but true. Dasara is a mating time for palace elephants ! There are seven elephants permanently residing in palace premises specially, used for taking part in religious rituals and all of them are female.

As there is no male elephant in Palace their procreation are stand still. But, a ray of hope arrives every time during dasara, as they are donned with the arrival of male elephants from forests, which take part in Dasara festivities.

Just eight days ago, one of the female elephant of Palace has been mated with pretty, tall, handsome, 52-year-old 'Arjuna', who is in the race with Balarama to carry howdah elephant.

For last five years, the Palace Board is successful in providing conjugal bliss for the languishing female elephants in their custody, with the male visitors. After studying the behaviour of elephants, the mahouts inform Palace officials and later arrangements are made to send male elephants.

Though they are couple of male elephants in Mysore Zoo, as they are not tamed elephants, in fear of it many behave rudely and widely with the female elephants, the authorities are not ready to take any chance.

Dr Nagaraj, veterinarian of Dasara elephants says, “even thought this is not a permanent solution, steps should be taken to create more opportunities for the female elephants to mate with the male.”

By this mating even the elephants are not conceived, its interesting to know that elephants can conceive until 70 years, unlike they are fit and ovulating.

As the male jumboos will return back to the forest after the completion of Dasara, measures have been taken to make best use of the opportunity to seek orgasmic pleasures between the elephants. Or else the officials have to wait until next Dasara !

  

Jail inmates to delight visitors during Dasara

Its not only the students and artistes who are gearing-up to present cultural programme during dasara. A new troupe of musicians are all set to hit the stage to present Musical programme (Sangeetha Rasamanjari Programme) during this year Dasara festival. They are the inmates of Mysore Central Jail.

About eight jail inmates Mahesh, Mohan, Siddegowda, Chandru, Yogesh, Venkatesh (singers), HK Putta, Chikusu (instruments) have been selected to render music programme.
They are being trained by Shivaprakash and Murthy for last three months to sing and play musical instruments like keyboard, drum, guitar, and many other instruments.

The inmates have learnt about 130 songs which include folklore, Hindi and Kannada film songs, bhavageethe, bhaktigeethe and patriotic songs. They have been provided with related books to learn songs during their leisure time. As they find hard to sing Hindi songs, they get the songs translated into Kannada with help of their teachers, and later sing them.

Jailor Jayasimha said that Mysore jail is the first jail in country, which is engaging the inmates to learn music and render programmes. The initiative of the programme is ADGP Prisons K V Gagandeep.

Inmate Venkatesh expressing happiness over performing programme during dasara festival said that “by going outside and giving performance we fell we to are part of society.”

Inmate Mahesh says due to engaged in learning music for last three months it has brought lot of changes in him and is even helpful to forget his agony.

Now mahouts to learn about properties of medicinal plants

There was the time when research scholars, students of Ayurveda went to forest to meet the tribals and learn from them about medicinal properties of plant and also how to identify them. But, now the things has changed.

Born in tribal community, a majority of them are not aware of many medicinal plants or its value though they use some of the medicines (kashaya) learnt from their ancestors to get the ailments cured.

Hence, the staff of Ayush (Ayurveda, Yoga, Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy) have all set to educate mahouts and their family members about the identification of medicinal plants, and their usage through power point presentation. The staff will also carry some of the Medicinal plants grown in the Ayush campus to show them.

Specially, plants which have medicinal properties for cough, allergies, stomach pain, headache, cold, asthma, diabetics, blood pressure, sugar, uterus problems, and many other ailments will be introduced to them.

The purpose of the programme is to educate them how to treat minor elements making use of the medicinal plants available in the forest, and also to conserve the ancient Ayurveda medicine for future.

For the first of its kind in the history of Mysore dasara, this type of unique programme has been organised for mahouts and their family members, who are in city along with their Jumbos to take part in the dasara festival and are staying at the pitched tents inside the palace premises.

District Ayush Officer Dr Nagesh says, “in forests though mahouts and kavadis come across many plants rich in medicinal value, they are unaware of their medicinal properties and they wont use it. Hence, to educate them Ayush has organised a camp starting from Sunday.”

Apart this, two days once the team of doctors comprising of Dr Ramesh, Dr Uma and Dr SM Veda are providing health education, personal and menstrual hygiene and nutrition education for women members of mahouts and kavadis families.

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Now its beauty care for Mahouts family members 

A team of three doctors of Ayush are not only educating about hygiene and properties of medicinal plants for the mahouts family members, where as they are been thought how to maintain good health, food diet, health, hair, eye care, food diet, beauty and much more.

To make them understand better, they are screening power point presentation and are making them to understand better about various health aspects screening related photographers.

As visual representations influences more and remains in memory for long time doctors have come out with this way. It has also easy for doctors to gather women in large number and hold the attention for long time.

One of the Mahouts wife Gowri, says “earlier the doctors used to give oral awareness and we were not able to understand. Now, they are bringing laptop and are showing related picture to us, from which we to are following what they mean.”

“The beauty tips provided them are very simple and are available at home. What we need is to do some process with its. We enjoy the classes very much,” says Thulasi.

Doctor Veda says food grains, pulses names are addressed in entirely different way and the power point presentation has helped them lot to understand better what we are saying.

  

Shut down of Lansdowne Building affects student community

Shut down of the century-old Lansdowne Building has not only affected the tenants doing good business since decades there, but also the student community, as the building was a last stop for used text books.

The small stretch of road was a student's haven to get all their works done at the shops here. Be it Middle school, High School or Degree books all were available here at discounted rate. Even specialised books referred by students of professional courses such as Engineering, Medical, litterateur were available here.

The building housed nine book stalls in which two of them sold exclusively second hand books. Since new books work out to be costly, students prefer used textbooks.

With admissions to Engineering colleges completed 20 days ago, the demand for text books has gone up as there are seven Engineering colleges in the city and the students are eager to procure the text books of this semester and even professional colleges strictly adhere to the academic schedule completing the course in time.

Prashanth owner of Gayatri Book says, “demand for both new and old books is good here. But now, books are lying idle inside the locked shop and we are helpless. Though recently the district administration allowed us to remove the goods stocked inside our shops, the time given was not sufficient as such most of the books are still struck inside. Those which we could bring out has already been sold."

Abudakar Siddiqui of Madina Book House said, “ours being a second hand book stall, a large number of students used to visit our shop to buy and resell the books. Every six months during the start of new semester Engineering students used to throng shops to purchase the books. Our regular customers are still calling to find out when the book stalls will be reopened.”

“We regularly purchase the second hand books at reasonable price here. We always got the book here we sought after just roaming a couple of shops. Now, due to the closure of book stalls we are waiting for the shops to re-open,” says Anirudh a student of NIE College.

The tenants are eagerly waiting when will be the temporary sheds promised by the MCC will be erected. Meantime, this loss of business at Lansdowne building has come as a blessing for other shops, where some students are heading.    

On a negative note: Small districts see big rise in child missing cases

Smaller districts seem to in competition with the bigger ones of the state when it comes to the missing cases of children. Karnataka Missing Child Bureau statistics show that districts like Ramnagar, Mandya, Yadgir, Gadag, Hassan, Haveri and Shimoga have registered a spurt in the number of cases in the last two years with some of them even witnessing increase in manifolds.

Being attracted to the fancies of city life, wanting to lead luxurious life and elopement are said to the major factors which is driving children to run away from homes. A majority of these children come from BPL families whose parents are engaged in labour or agricultural activities. Parents being deep in debt is also one of the reason which distances their children from them.

Ramnagar which registered 28 cases in 2010 saw 154 going missing from its land in 2011. worse, within seven months of the year 2012, the district bordering Bangalore registered 359 cases of which 140 have been traced. Its neighbouring district, Mandya went up from 40 cases during the whole of last year to 146 in just seven months this year. Likewise, Hassan went up from 42 to 143 and the backward Yadgir district 18 last year to 121 this year.

Gadag and Haveri reported 63 and 52 cases this year respectively,up from 10 and 8 last year. Shimoga registered 58 cases this year and 24 last year. The number of missing children traced in these districts is abysmally poor.

Jenifer, Co-ordinator of Child Line, Don Bosco, an NGO working for the welfare of street children says, the main reason for children running away from their homes is attraction towards city, better job opportunities as helpers and also being influenced by other working children who they come across.

Child psychologist say that children take the drastic decision of running away from home when unable to bear the domestic violence in the family, poverty, alcoholic father, neglect and love affairs.

Co-ordinator of the State's Missing Child Bureau, Binu Varghese, said that mostly children in the age group of 12-16 years go missing. “Coming from remote places these children are lured by city's life. When it comes to girls, majority of them elope with their loved ones. The delay in registering missing complaints is a great setback creating lot of problems, as they get employed and settled down making it difficult to trace. If the complaint is registered immediately it will be helpful to trace the children,” he added.

Ramnagar Shantha Jeeva Jyothi Missing Children Bureau Director Sundaram Edwin said, "It is not just poverty but even life-style changes, impact of television and conflicts in the family provoke these children to run away from homes. As Ramnagar is closer to Bangalore more children flee to Bangalore. Various awareness programme has been organised to educate parents to take care of their wards,” he added.

Bangalore where thousands of missing cases were registered in the past has seen a steady decline in the number of cases registered in the last two years. Officials say, it might be because parents prevent eloping cases and they don't want to register complaints. 'Anyways, with the help of latest technology, strict monitoring and online registration of complaints more number of children are being traced and handed over to their families,' say Officials.

District	2010	2011	2012 (July)
Ramnagar	28	154	359
Mandya	108	40	146
Hassan	85	42	143
Yadgiri	10	18	121
Gadag	12	10	63
Haveri	26	8	52
Shimoga	29	24	58
Bellary	17	16	20

Year 2009-2012 (upto July)	Missing Complaints	Traced	Untraced
Male	13202	6683	6519
Female	4502	1181	3321
Total	17704	7864	9840