There’s something curious about Mysore. Just look at its air traffic these past several months, for instance—it has actually grown, even in a pandemic. The number of aircraft movements aren’t jaw-dropping, of course. Just about 3,513 in the year to March 2021—under 10 flights a day on average. But still an 11 per cent annual increase in a year when nearly everything came to standstill for many months. If you go further back, the current figures are nothing short of a big leap because not very long ago, the Mysore airport, located just a little to the south of the city’s iconic Chamundi Hill, was dormant. As idyllic as things could be in Mysore.