Dasara

The festival of Dasara comes to a climax on 8th and 9th October. Dasara (or Dussehra?) celebrates the goddess Durga's victory over the buffalo headed demon Mahishasura and is particularly big in Mysore which derives its name from Mahishasura. Here celebrations have been going on for over a week, with illuminations and events every evening at the palace, lights on Chamundi hill and culminating in an elephant parade.

At day break on the morning of the 8th our drivers (Girish and Manju) perform a special Dasara puja to bless the cars, office and camping equipment to ensure auspicious travels and working environment. Even my computer monitor gets a garland of flowers and coconut and saffron tikka marks.


Today also marks the end of our Raleigh staff training, so we are now theoretically competent to manage our groups of 'venturers' when they arrive on Saturday. For me as Logs manager, this also means planning and obtaining all the food for the first 3 week phase including 48 bags of porridge, 600 rice bags and 300 peanut crunch bars... Hopefully I've got the numbers right so folks don't go hungry.