Balarama and the Desara Elephant

The Elephants start arriving to Mysore city in groups. They arrive to Mysore a month or so before the start of the actual festivities and they undergo practice for their march on the final day. The elephants are accompanied by their respective keepers or Mahouts. The elephants are usually brought in trucks and are occasionally walked the 70-km distance from their home base in the Nagarahole National Park to Mysore. Villagers greet the sacred animals all along their designated trekking route. As the each party of pachyderms arrive at the Veerana Hosahalli forest checkpost in Hunsur taluk, from the forest, they are received by the District Minister, a host of officials and prominent persons from Mysore and people from nearby villagers. The villagers perform folk dances, and beat drums and sing songs and welcome the elephants. This in keeping with the royal tradition of the Mysore Maharajas.

While in their respective camps the elephants are served "Ragi mudde", a mixture of ragi and horse gram and fodder branches. But when they are royal guests in the royal city of Mysore preparing for Dasara, they are served with ‘royal’ food till the grand Dasara finale -Jamboo Savari. The elephants get to eat urud dal, greenfram, wheat, boiled rice, onion and vegetables in the mornings and evenings. They get rice, groundnut, coconut, jaggery and sugar cane with some salt to add taste to the diet after they return from their regular rehearsals. This food is served twice a day. They also get branch fodder like banyan leaves. Extra care is taken while serving food to the jumbos. High-calorie and protein-rich food is served to the elephants to improve their physical fitness. They carry a lot of weight at the procession and for that, they need strength. Hence they are fed with rich food. The food served in the morning is laced with pure butter for flavour. Besides nutritious food, vitamin doses are also injected so as to balance the diet. An elephant eats 400 kilograms of fodder in a day in the forests. The food served to them in Mysore contains high calories and is more than what they eat in the jungles.

The Elephants are named in Kannada and have usually the names of Mythological and Historical figures. Balarama is the main elephant of the Festival and the other elephants are 34-year-old Bharatha, Kanthi (62), Gayathri (48), Kokila (56), Sri Rama, Abhimanyu, Gajendra, Biligiriranga, Vikram, Varalakshmi and Sarojini.