CHENNAI: As one walks into the room where Padmaja Rao has set up her golu, the ambience instantly transports you to Mysuru. Her set-up is made of regular padi with deities placed at the top and commoners placed at the bottom. The highlight is the elaborate set-up of the Mysuru palace, Krishna Rajendra circle, auspicious Banni tree and the Chamundi hills. “I used to visit Mysuru in my childhood, and thus, I have fond memories of it,” she reminisces.
“I wanted to recreate the Dussehra processions that take place from Mysuru Palace to Banni tree. I wanted to revisit my childhood. I visited Mysuru two weeks back and bought the set-up for the palace, Krishna Rajendra Circle, the howden carrying the deity and elements of Chamundi hills.” Padmaja always looked forward to golu as a child. With time, she started experimenting with different themes. “The most important feature of a doll is the face.
If I like the face, I don’t think twice. I have dolls from Mexico, London and Bhutan that I have incorporated in my golu,” she says. The set-up took five days to get ready. One of the interesting aspects of her set-up is the Chamundi hills that she created using cardboard boxes of varied heights placed in ascending order and covered it with a sheet soaked in white cement. She placed a small Nandi idol on the hill to give it an authentic look.
Padmaja has given a lot of attention to detail to the procession. You can see a 750- kilo golden howdah mounted on the lead elephant with the idol of deity Chamundeshwari placed on it being taken from Mysuru Palace to ‘Bannimantap.’ The palace even has guards.