Mysuru: When you’re as big as an elephant, you have to spend a good deal of your time eating. Due to their enormous size, these gentle giants consume 200-250 kg of food on a daily basis. This is enough to produce a whopping 50 kg of dung. And during Dasara, the eating capacity increases, thanks to strenuous routine. There are 12 Dasara elephants inside the Mysore Palace premises and on an average, they poo around 600 kg every day, spreading out in Palace and the Jumboo Savari route where they are taken out for rehearsals. The dung is considered holy by believers and there are people who collect the dung for pujas as for them, elephants mean Lord Ganesha. If some people collect the poop and take it home, some remove their footwear and stand on it as according to them, elephant dung reduces body temperature. Among the elephants, the poop discarded by Howdah elephant Arjuna is in great demand. People queue-up to collect his dung on the Vijayadashami day as he walks majestically carrying the Golden Howdah from the Mysore Palace to the Torchlight Parade Grounds at Bannimantap.
