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Shailaja Kamal Gopinath

Come September, and Mysore is taken over by the mastodons.

Or rather, their descendants the elephants, who flock to the city for the annual torchlight parade. And for the duration of the festival, these elephants, drawn from temples all over the state and from neighbouring Kerala, are honoured visitors, officially welcomed at the Palace gates by the political leaders and pampered with plantains, fruits and other edibles by the citizens.

Drona, the 61-year-old veteran of 17 previous Dassera processions, is a celebrity by himself -- as evidenced by the fact that no less than Deputy Chief Minister Siddaramaiha was on hand to welcome Drona when he marched to the palace on the first day of the Dassera celebrations at the head of five lesser elephants namely Balarama (39), Gajendra (46), Revathi (44), Kavitha (43), and Sarojini (55). Interestingly, all of them have participated in previous processions, though none is even close to matching the experience of Drona, the patriarch.

After being accorded the traditional puja and ceremonial reception, the six pachyderms, as befitted their guest of state status, were led to the palace courtyard with the police band playing. A day later, the second batch of elephants -- Bahadur (49), Bheema (36), Srirama (38), Gayathri, (34), Kanthi (54) and Chaitra (23) -- arrived to complete the line-up for this year's procession.

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