48 Hours in Mysore - For Dasara

By Tory

Mysore at Dasara

After only 10 days in India, a weekend visit to Mysore for Dasara served as a bit of a crash course on life in India. It was the first time I was completely on my own, without the constant help and support of my gracious new coworkers and housemates. So, I thought I should write down what I saw.
Short on cash, and with hotels charging extra for the peak season, I decided to try out couch surfing – a site that connects travelers looking for a free place to stay with people who want to host them. Though I have been a member of the site for over a year, I had never “couch surfed” before. Unsure of what I was getting myself into, I reminded myself that at least it was free.
When I got to the Mysore Bus Station early Saturday afternoon, I called my soon-to-be host, Sharvan, a 23-year-old environmental engineer. Sharvan was clearly sleeping when I called, but he repeated that he would pick me up in “five to ten minutes, five to ten minutes”; I later recognized this as his default estimate of how long he would take, regardless of the situation. I wondered if India is like Brazil, where you can count on people drastically underestimating the time that they will take to meet you somewhere – if they meet you at all. Or, maybe Sharvan had just heard this phrase a lot in movies, and out of ease, repeated it. Regardless, it became endearing.
About an hour and a half later Sharvan showed up on his motorbike, and after a confusing fifteen minutes of misunderstandings over our mobile phones, we “converged” – Sharvan’s way of saying “meet up” – and motored off to his apartment in a residential area outside the city.
Along the way, Sharvan immediately proved himself to be an incredibly gracious and dedicated host. He was constantly pointing left and right and explaining the history of various places to me; in the meantime, I stared ahead, terrified of the oncoming traffic to which he seemed oblivious.
When we reached Sharvan’s apartment I took a moment to observe the living conditions and, seeing that there was no soap or water to be had, I realized I would have to get used to feeling dirty for a while.
After showing me some pictures from his “Motorcycle Diaries”-inspired bike trip to Leh, on the Chinese border, Sharvan, who currently seems to pass his days smoking, listening to Eddie Vedder and studying for the CAT (he nervously informed me that he needed to be in the top 99.9 percentile to gain admission), told me that he would call his best friends from his “gang,” and we would all go out. Then he began to hem. I wondered what was up. He said, “Well, these are friends but I am not very close to them,”  – but aren’t they from the “gang”? – “…So, I cannot tell them about couch surfing. So we will tell them we met at the beach some months ago.” He told me the beach name, but after asking him to repeat it ten times I gave up on remembering it. I had been wondering about how socially acceptable it would be here for a young man to host a hitherto unknown young woman in his home after getting in touch online. Sharvan’s beach story answered that question. Luckily, his friends did not interrogate me, so, I was spared the guaranteed awkwardness of attempting to repeat the name of the beach where we’d met many months ago and become fast friends.
I quickly realized how lucky I was to be with Sharvan and his gang, rather than in a hotel. They took me to a wonderful lunch “joint,” where in spite of my resolute insistence on paying, they treated me to a perfect lunch of idlies with sambar. “You are our guest,” they echoed. In India, I have realized that this seemingly limitless hospitality is common, at least in the South. I wonder if this is the same in the North, where I have heard the culture is quite different.
After lunch we scooted around the city, visiting the majestic (and they tell me affordable) Lalitha Mahal Palace Hotel, the kaleidoscopic musical fountain at Brindavan Gardens, and finally Chamundi Hill, where we got a beautiful view of the city all lit up for Dasara, and I watched the cows make a feast of the lavish floral arrangements on the cars in the parking lot.

Brindavan Gardens, and cows finishing up their dinner of Dasara wreaths on Chamundi Hill

My fellow visitors in all of these places were, in themselves, a delight to behold. Most families were quite done up; the colors of their outfits exquisitely complemented the colors of the fountains at Brindavan Gardens. To my surprise, some families asked to take pictures with me. My host explained that many people from rural south India only venture out of their tiny villages to celebrate Dasara in Mysore; the sight of a foreigner is therefore extremely rare for them.
Later, after a stop for a late night chicken-and-roti dinner at Café Biryani (a very good restaurant, with the fastest service I have had so far in India), Sharvan dropped me off at the room so that I could “take rest,” and he left to “booze with the gang.” I confirmed at this point that there was no water except some that was left over in a bucket. I gave a bucket bath my best effort, and slept.
The next morning Sharvan arrived around 9:30 AM. After he eagerly showed me a bit of “Into the Wild” – another inspirational movie, he said, except for the ending – he said we would “do one thing”: he would drop me off early at Mysore Palace, so that I could be a tourist and he could avoid the crowd. He informed me I would be the “perfect tourist, roaming around alone,” and therefore gave me a wonderful piece of advice: smile at everyone.
...To be continued next week!