Prelude of thrilling Yuva Dasara concerts, Mysuru Palace cultural evenings set tone for finale

Mysuru: All roads lead to Mysuru. All hotel rooms in Mysuru are full. Live musical nights by popular playback singers at five-day Yuva Dasara concluded on Saturday; mesmerising cultural evenings by noted artistes in front of the illuminated Mysuru Palace will end on Monday, and other events of Mysuru Dasara festivities, have set a tone for grand finale -- the Jamboo Savari procession.

Noted musicians and playback singers, including Arjun Janya, Pritam, Jubin Nautiyal, Devi Sri Prasad, Sunidhi Chauhan enthralled over one lakh music lovers, especially youths, every evening at the Yuva Dasara at Uttanahalli, from Tuesday to Saturday.

People stayed connected and expressed their love for their favourite singers by cheering them with applauses and even waving their mobile torches. Besides enjoying, people took videos of their favourite artistes, clicked photos and selfies and uploaded them on social media platforms.

Several local talents like 'Lagori' band and 'Best Kept Secret' band both from Bengaluru, were also given an opportunity on the big stage. A blend of music, dance and fire works kept the audience in high spirit.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, DCM D K Shivakumar, Energy Minister K J George, Higher Education Minister M C Sudhakar, Urban Development Minister Bhyrathi Suresh enjoyed a few songs by Pritam on Wednesday, during their visit to Mysuru. Several dignitaries from senior officers to judges, made time to enjoy some music almost every late evening.

Mysuru district administration, led by Mysuru District In-charge Minister H C Mahadevappa, MUDA Commissioner K R Rakshith, especially Mysuru district police led by SP Vishnuvardhan, ASP C Mallik and their huge team, made elaborate arrangements to manage the young crowd, including parking, sign boards, lighting and seating arrangement and even huge LED screens to watch the show from a long distance.

In order to manage crowd and traffic, the Mysuru district administration had shifted Yuva Dasara venue from the Maharaja's College Grounds to Utthanahalli Grounds on the city outskirts for the second year. After the stampede around Chinnaswamy stadium, measures taken by the Mysuru district administration last year itself, to shift the Yuva Dasara venue on the city outskirts for crowd management, had received huge appreciation.

Parking their vehicles at the designated places, people didn't mind walking up to at least 500 metres to the venue, and stayed back till 11 pm each day and returned home without any chaos. The event concluded safely with no untoward incidents, leaving memories in young minds until the next Dasara.

Cultural evenings in front of illuminated Mysuru Palace

A huge number of connoisseurs are equally enjoying the 8-day cultural events every evening in front of the illuminated Mysuru Palace. They have enjoyed vocal and instrumental classical, light and folk music by several noted artistes, from 'Thoredu Jeevisa Bahude' song by Pandit M Venkatesh Kumar; Hariharan's Gazals and even popular melodies like 'Krishna ni begane baaro' to 'Chanda re'; Ananya Bhat's 'Andaavare mundaavare'.

They were mesmerised by the violin concert of Mysore Manjunath and team. The famed Police Band concert kept the audience spellbound. Home Minister G Parameshwara participated in the Police Band concert and encouraged the team. The cultural evenings at nine other venues are also receiving good response.