BharatSangraha

Old Mysore · Deccan Inland Plateau

Terrain and eco-zones

Semi-arid to sub-humid, and unusually equable for its latitude because of elevation. Bengaluru at 920 m holds 15–35 °C across the year and takes about 970 mm; Mysuru at 770 m takes around 800 mm; the Chamarajanagar plains fall below 700 mm and the forest hills above them take considerably more. The region is one of the few in the peninsula fed by both monsoons — the south-west from June to September and the north-east in October and November — which is why the tank calendar has two filling seasons and why a failure of either one is survivable.

Landforms

Granite and gneiss peneplain, gently tilted south-east, with thin red gravelly soilIsolated monolithic hills and boulder tors used as fort and temple sites — Chamundi, Nandi, Savandurga, DevarayanadurgaTank cascades cut down the valley lines, several thousand of them, each with a bund, a weir and a sluiceThe Cauvery gorge below Shivanasamudra, where the river splits round an island and falls twiceThe Talakadu sand sheet, a belt of wind-piled dunes burying temples on the river's south bankDry and moist deciduous forest along the southern hills, continuous with the Nilgiri massif

Rivers and waters

Cauvery — the trunk, entering from the hills and leaving through the Shivanasamudra gorgeKabini — the southern tributary, dammed at Beechanahalli, meeting the Cauvery at Tirumakudalu NarasipuraHemavathi and Lakshmana Tirtha — the western tributaries off the ghat countryShimsha and Arkavathi — the plateau's own rivers, both seasonal and both dammedSuvarnavathi and Chikkahole in the Chamarajanagar plainSouth Pennar (Dakshina Pinakini) — rising near Nandi Hills and leaving the region eastwards, not a Cauvery stream at all

Through the year

SeasonMonthsTypicalWhat it is like
WinterNovember–February14–30 °CThe best months and the busiest. The tanks are full from the north-east monsoon, the jaatre calendar runs, avarekai field beans are in every kitchen in the Bengaluru belt, and the sugarcane crush begins in Mandya.
SummerMarch–May20–37 °CHot on the Mysuru and Chamarajanagar plains, several degrees milder on the Bengaluru plateau. Tanks draw down to their beds, mangoes come off the trees at Srinivaspur and Ramanagara, and pre-monsoon thunderstorms break in late April.
South-west monsoonJune–September19–29 °CGrey and drizzling rather than torrential — the region sits in the rain shadow of the crest it looks at. The Cauvery, however, arrives in flood from the ghat country upstream, and the reservoirs fill on somebody else's rain.
North-east monsoonOctober–November17–29 °CShort violent evening storms that fill the tanks a second time. Dasara falls in this window, and the light in the last week of it is the reason the palace illumination photographs the way it does.

Best time to visitOctober to February. Dasara moves with the lunar calendar and usually falls in late September or October — the city is full and hotels triple their rates, which is either the reason to go or the reason not to. Bandipur and Nagarhole are best from February to May, when the water sources shrink and the animals concentrate.

The climate, landforms, rivers and seasons of Old Mysore, and the best time of year to visit. (4)