Dasara, like Ugadi, will come and go every year. But being a Naada Habba, with lakhs of people participating in the celebrations, unlike Ugadi, organising Dasara is indeed a daunting task.

During the days of Maharajas, because of centralised power, with fear of the Maharaja in the mind and prayers to the Goddess Chamundeshwari in the heart, there used to be total discipline in the dress - code, seating of the VVIPs, VIPs, the courtiers, artists, procession (Jumboo Savari) and the citizens at large who came to see the royal Jumboo Savari and the regal Dasara extravaganza.

In the absence of the royalty, true to our liberal democracy, discipline has been the first casualty and I witnessed it at the Palace premises yesterday, like I had witnessed it when I used to cover Dasara personally from 1978 till around 1990s.

Yesterday, I went with my wife and another family as the District In - Charge Minister S. A. Ramdas had sent VVIP (I repeat VVIP) passes through a special messenger to my house!

I felt flattered and rubbed a bit of it on my reluctant wife and succeeded in persuading her to come with me to the Palace. "No hassles; come with me. I am having a VVIP pass, colourfully printed, quite thick, don't you see?" I said, flipping it like a pack of cards.

Soon I was to cut a sorry figure as the Police in white stopped me from entering the Sayyaji Rao Road in front of the Corporation. I flaunted the VVIP pass where it was printed Gate No. G and the entry point at Karikallu Thotti. Keeper of the Law was not convinced. "I am telling you to go to this road (he waved his hand in the air). Go. Hey, you pull the barricade and close the entry." I went towards where he directed and there one Constable in Khaki saw my pass, read it and politely said, "Sir, this is for VIPs only. This is Gate No. P. Yours is G. So please go there." Again I was back to “square A”.

The earlier Police officer in white was not there. A para - police youngster, a volunteer, was there. He saw the pass, walked up to another Police officer, explained to him the matter and I was allowed entry. However, there were no signboards. Those who recognised me did guide me verbally but we lost our way as there were no signboards saying VVIP. Then we saw VIP boards. But in an enclosure where every chair was occupied, where do we go? We were distraught and were about to go back when my friend said, "There is DC."

I saw Harsha Gupta in his trademark shirt and pants, with a cell phone pressed to his ear. I pounced on him and simply asked for help. He was obliging. Called the aid and ordered him to find me a place either inside the Durbar Hall overlooking the “happening area” or on the procession route. I preferred the latter and we were at the "VVIPs" seated on plastic chairs, with the midday sun beating on us mercilessly.

Looking around I realised, after all, this is not Maharaja's Dasara but people's Dasara, where there cannot be any caste, class or creed differences. But then, why issue entry - passes (which is in one sense, invitation) with categorization like VVIP, VIP, etc.? A mockery.

From next Dasara, it is best if the authorities issue general passes and be done with it. And don't spend so much on such costly printing and bogus passes which has no significance in the eyes of the Dasara volunteers deputed to seat the pass - holders. The only beneficiary seems to be the printer.

To go back in memory, as I remember, Sri Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar sat in the golden howdah for the last time in 1969, following the abolition of Privy Purse and the Maharaja financially found himself unable to continue the royal tradition of Dasara which entailed huge expenditure to the royal exchequer.

Citizens of Mysore for a while thought that that was the end of Dasara, like it happened during Tipu's rule for 16 years. During Hyder Ali's rule (from 1761) Dasara used to be celebrated from the royal Palace in Srirangapatna, with the captive Raja (figure - head) on horse - back. Those days, the present kind of Jumboo Savari with elephants was not there.

Even Raja Wadiyar (1610) who introduced the tradition of Dasara as a celebration following the tradition of Vijayanagar Empire used to ride on horse back during the procession, according to Dr. P. V. Nanjaraje Urs, a scholar on Mysore dynasty.

It was only in 1880, the then Chamarajendra Wadiyar who introduced the tradition of the King sitting on the elephant in howdah (Ambari) and this tradition continued. Now that this tradition of the Maharaja sitting on the Howdah is also gone, the authorities were wondering what to do and there was a discussion and debate as to who, whether it should be Bhuvaneshwari (the presiding deity of Karnataka) or Chamundeshwari, the presiding deity of the Wadiyar dynasty of Mysore.

Finally, for whatever reason, Chamundeshwari seems to have won, as at present it is the idol of Chamundeshwari that is being carried on the howdah elephant as we saw yesterday and in the earlier years.

By the way, it is worth recalling the period when Dasara as a State festival, almost came to an end forever after Jayachamaraja Wadiyar (father of the scion of the royal family Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wadiyar) discontinued the State Dasara after 1969, following the abolition of the Privy Purse, as mentioned earlier.

It was then a group of concerned citizens of Mysore, headed by the legendary industrialist F. K. Irani, MLA Jayadevaraje Urs (of Hinkal), industrialist D. T. S. Rao, H. Subba Rao of Aravinda Parimala Works, R. Guru of N. Ranga Rao and Sons, Deccan Herald Senior Correspondent Krishna Vattam, R. Vasudeva Murthy of Mahajana College, well - known Kannada writer Chaduranga, Azeez Sait, Sahukar Thimmappa, Vinod Rao of Ganesh Beedis, B. N. Kenge Gowda and others numbering 24, who decided to conduct Dasara as Janatha Dasara, as they wanted to conduct it in a modified way, befitting the changed political situation, with the help of sponsors and donors.

This was in 1975 and continued till 1979. Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wadiyar was the Chief Patron of the committee that was called the Mysore Dasara Industrial and Cultural Exhibition. In 1980 however, R. Gundu Rao, the young, new Chief Minister, decided to revive Dasara as State Festival and since then, it has been a grand show every year, as we witnessed yesterday.

However, Dasara after Maharaja Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar came under eclipse from 1970 to 1975, with some voluntary organisations putting up the show, more as a ritual than as a grand celebration. In fact, even this was called off once for reason of plague in Surat and another time for reason of drought in the State.

Now, about yesterday's show with 132 cultural troupes, all clones in my opinion, which included 32 thematic tableaux, the procession was the most boring and the longest among all the processions I have seen since 1978 without fail. A foreigner from Canada told me, sitting in the "VVIP" enclosure with his wife that he had not bargained either for the poor seating arrangement or for the kind of cultural show-casing he was seeing.

"Were you expecting a carnival like procession?" I asked. He laughed and said, "Oh no, no. I know there is religious sanctity to this. I have come after reading about Dasara in books and magazines. The presentation is rather crude, no polish, nor finish. Too noisy, deafening and monotonous."

"We will improve next year. Your view is well taken," I said.

The saving grace of Dasara for tourists and also for the local citizens seems to be the torchlight parade. Keep it up.