The pace of life and ways of residents in urban spaces across the country seem to have left the senior citizens stranded and dazed. The gen next has neither the frame of mind nor time to bestow attention to their elderly, euphemistic identity of the oldies. The scenario of that change that is hard to miss in Mysuru itself triggers myriad thoughts about preserving the city’s time-honoured, but-now-fractured image as a heritage city alongside the world famous Hampi, which is in ruins, with the difference that the city’s exalted image is resting in the pages of its history, with its relics, particularly, the modest dwellings in an ambience of tranquillity, all gone for now. Mercifully, the old names of the few such regions across the city such as Sunnadakeri, Halladakeri, Ravabeedi, Bandikeri, Ittigegud, Nanjumalige, Doddapete and so on still linger in the fraternity of Mysuru’s old-timers. These hallmarks of Mysuru of yesteryears are sure to vanish without trace and may not find a place in the pages of the city’s chronicles, unlike the mention of the glory of Vijayanagar Kingdom, which sounds like fiction.
But for the enduring quality of construction that has stood the vagaries of nature over several centuries, hundreds of temples that are places of worship even to this day, they also would have faced the fate of Hampi ruins, which are speechless testimony to the refinement that the land’s people of long past brought to bear. The old charm of Mysuru, however, may not mean anything to the young of our days.
