Govinda Govinda

Finally I went to Tirupati and did darshan of the lord. It was one of the pending things I had from long time. I never planned seriously and just waited for the right time to go. This time Pallavi called me on Friday and asked me whether I will join them on the next day to Tirupati. I agreed and called Jeda also. But Jeda had some office work and hence he could not join. We left to Tirupati on Saturday (17th Dec 2011) at around 17:30 from our house. Vinay (Dumsi) had brought the car and me and Pallavi joined him at 18:00 near Rangashankara. We then directly headed towards KR puram to pick another friend of Pallavi and Vinay; Priya. When we left Bangalore it was almost 19:30. The unfortunate thing in this trip is Vinay is the only person who drives the car. Although I know how to drive I did not have enough road grip or confidence to take complete control of the steering. Our next stop was for cigarette. Anil wanted to have a smoke and all the 4 others are non-smokers. There was actually another route to Tirupati from that place which was getting displayed in GPS. We just headed straight in national highway 4. The next stop was in Nangali for dinner. We stopped near a Shanti sagar and had our dinner. From then we did not stop for anything apart from Petrol. We reached Tirupati at around 00:40 and the first thing we did was checking into a hotel and just slept off. We woke up at 04:45 in the morning and took bathe and started to climb the hills at 06:35 in the morning. After some 50 steps we decided to take off our foot wears and just put them in a carry bag and climb barefooted. We did our official breakfast there only and started to climb, the time was around 07:00. In the mid way we found some deer and we fed them biscuits, this was one of the nice experiences I had. These deer were very well experienced in eating whatever is present in our hands. We took lot of small breaks in between and finally reached the top, Tirumala at around 11:15. We were very tired when we reached the top. Anil wanted to give ‘Mudi’ and he took 2 hours to get it done due to large queue. We then went to ‘Free pedestrian Darshan’ queue. The time we joined the queue was around 13:25. After standing, sitting, sleeping in the queue for 5-6 long hours we did the Darshan of the Lord. There were specific people standing right inside the temple to push the crowd outside after the Darshan. So literally we can see the idol for a maximum period of 20 seconds. For 20 seconds of Darshan we travelled for 6 hours, climbed the hills for around 5 hours, stood in queue for around 5-6 hours. After successfully did the Darshan we stood in another queue for taking the prasada. It was curd rice in a small cup but tasted very good. Then we stood in another queue for taking the Laddus. We had 5 Laddu tokens and each fetches us 2 Laddus. For extra Laddu we are supposed to stand in another very long queue and take the token. Just by seeing the queue we dropped the idea of extra Laddus and headed outside. There was a miscommunication in the luggage counter and they had sent our luggage down to Alipiri. This is the starting point where we start climbing the hills. We wasted some 45 min just by searching in the luggage room for our bag. When we got to know the status of our luggage and got into the bus which takes us down the hills to Alipiri it was already 20:00. It was around 21:00 when we reached Alipiri and there was no more free energy left in us to leave to Bangalore. We decided to halt there only and leave to Bangalore early morning by 04:00. I decided not to go to office the next day and sent a mail saying the same. Till sending the mail only office was there in my mind. We slept in some dormitory at around 23:00 and woke up at around 03:45 in the morning and quickly left to Bangalore. When we started from there the time was around 04:10 and when we reached Bangalore it was around 08:30. There was an option for me to go directly to office but I had no energy left to go to office directly without changing the clothes, without taking bathe and most importantly without sleeping properly for last couple of days. Finally me and Pallavi came to our house at around 09:30 and completely rested. Till Friday afternoon I did not know that I was going to Tirupati the next day. And as elders say till the Lord decides we cannot go on a pilgrimage, this time we did go to Tirupati without planning much or without thinking much. So does this mean elders’ saying is true or we were very lucky to go to Tirupati and came back just as any other trip? I am not getting the exact answer but I am sure for some questions there are no answers.