Mysuru Winter Festival from Dec. 24

It will be a “December to remember’’ as the district administration is braving for the 10-day Mysuru Winter Festival from December 24 to January 2, 2020.

Coinciding with the Christmas and year-end holiday season the festival is expected to increase tourist footfall to the city besides providing a slew of activities for the locals to revel and usher in the new year.

The authorities are spending nearly ₹70 lakh towards the festival which will have winter flower show on the palace premises, music and dance performances, photo exhibition and fireworks to ring in the New Year.

The Palace Board Deputy Director Subramanya and Deputy Director of Tourism Department P. Janardhan told mediapersons here on Tuesday that the festival will help shore up Mysuru’s image and brand as a tourist destination.

Entry to the flower show will be free for the public and will feature more than 20,000 flowers arranged artistically apart from 32 species of flower plants. The old wooden palace of Mysuru, which was destroyed in a fire in the 1890s, will be replicated using a variety of flowers and this model will be 45 ft. in length, 10 ft. in breadth and 20 ft. in height.

The flower show will also feature an elephant-drawn cart besides two giant models of elephants made of flowers. The Horticulture department will depict the achievements of ISRO by creating a few models of rockets and space missions made entirely of flowers.

As it is the centenary year of the last Maharaja, Jayachamaraja Wadiyar, the authorities will pay tributes to him by creating a flower model of the king seated on the throne. Apart from this, statues of Swami Vivekananda, Siddaganga seer Shivakumar Swamiji, and the private durbar of the Wadiyars will be other attractions of the flower show.

The organisers said the flower arrangement depicting the private durbar hall will be a selfie zone for the visitors and is expected to be popular. The walls of the Varahaswamy temple will be adorned with flowers to create a vertical garden and is expected to measure about 273 ft. x 13 ft.

There are also plans to distribute herbal plants. The arrangements will be overhauled once with new flowers to ensure that the exhibits remain fresh. There will be palace illumination daily from 7 p.m. to 8.30 p.m. while classical music featuring the compositions of Jayachamaraja Wadiyar will be played in the backdrop at the flower show.

From December 28 to 30, there will be cultural programmes on the palace premises. There will be a fusion show by playback singer M.D. Pallavi and party on December 28 from 7.15 p.m. to 9.15 p.m. On December 29, there will be musical performance by various groups from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. About 110 artists from Sri Raghuleela Chandra Mandira will present Srinivas Kalyana, a classical dance and music feature, on December 30 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

The Mysuru Police Band will take centre stage on December 31 and perform from 11 p.m. to midnight after which the fireworks will commence.

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