Palace illumination

As spectacular as the Mysore Palace’s façade is, it gets even more spectacular on Sundays and other public holidays when it is lit for an hour in the evenings from 7 pm; the palace is lit for a few minutes every evening after the sound and light show but it is very fleeting. The exteriors of the palace are illuminated with nearly one lakh electric bulbs, and the whole palace looks like a fairy tale setting. In fact, the first attempt to illuminate the palace was done as far back as 1878 to mark Chamarajendra Wadiyar’s wedding via system of gas-powered electric lights run by dynamo. The effort had mixed results. Subsequently, lights were installed permanently but it was only in 1908 that the palace was hooked up with a source of power supply from the Cauvery Power Installation.