Tirupathi and Sri Kalahasthi visit II

This is the continuation of the previous blog...

The MiDnIgHt Conversation:

Well, after we had the nice dinner on saturday and returned to the guest house,we indeed tried to sleep. But the power nap that we had made it impossible for us to even get a wink :). So when I suggested that we go out and chat for "10 minnutes", I had an overwhelming response, with Anand and Venkatesh already outside!! Soon RP also joined us and there we were chatting about everything from black magic, politics, Indian culture, temples, don't know what all... When it was 00:45 on Jul 22, 2007 (Sunday), it was time for the AngaPradhakshinam guys to start. So, those four guys started and I & Anand tried to catch some sleep and eventually succeeded at 02:00. It was raining heavily outside!!!!

The descent:

We woke up at 05:15 to get ready for the descent. Three of us (I, Anand and Venkatesh) were to get down by walk (thru steps) while the other 3 were to take a jeep with our luggages (old people :)). We started climbing down at 06:15. Initialy, we were pretty slow as we were bare footed and we also felt the strain of yesterday's walk. We ate pori, manga etc and even had our breakfast just before Gali Gopuram. We chose a particular shop because the TV there was playing the Telugu version of "Pokiri" but as luck would have it, a kid who was operating the DVD player rewinded and played the opening scene some 4 times and that was what we got to watch :(. But this stretch was total fun and we literally enjoyed every step that we climbed down :). Our legs were not in our control, shaking, moving fast and aching and we were laughing through out. We will end up taking four steps when we actually intended to take only one! I repeat, it was GREAT FUN and the most memorable part of the trip... The irony was, out of the 3550 steps, around 1200 steps covered 7 km stretch while teh remaining 2300 steps covered a meagre 2 km!! We eventually reached the footsteps at 09:30, whereas we actually thought we will be able to climb down in 1.5 hrs :)

Sri Kalahasthi:

In the meantime, the other three guys had reached down and preponed our return to Bangalore by the 15:45 bus. So we had 6 hrs to cover Kalahasthi and Tiruchanoor. We booked a taxi to cover the two places. Tirupathi and Kalahasthi were 40 km apart. We reached Kalahasthi in less than an hour. When we tried to get a Rs. 30 Darshan ticket and go inside, some ____ there said that he can help us get a special darshan at Rs. 500 for 6 people. We din't have an idea of the crowd and hence took up that option to know that it was no different from the actual ticket. We had paid him Rs. 200 and would have been better off had we chose the initial 30 Rs. ticket :(. Still, we had a good darshan at both the Sannadhis (with Abhishekam at the Ambal sannadhi
:)).

Tiruchanoor:

After Kalahsthi, we reached Tiruchanoor at around 13:30 and finished our darshan, thus completing whatever we had set out to complete :))). Not much rush in Tiruchanoor and we had a great Darshan, needless to say She was looking awesome!!

The Stunt:

If you think that our trip to Kalahasthi has nothing else to mention about, then you are surely mistaken. The taxi driver almost finished us off, when he tried to overtake a lorry without seeing a jeep coming on the other side. Luckily he avoided a head on collision by turning and braking at the right moment. Our Sumo made a creaking sound and turned almost 180 degrees on the road and stooped with it's back towards a bush. Fortunately, there were no vehicles coming from behind. Surprisingly, none of us shouted during this, perhaps everyone had thought that the inevitable is gonna happen, just as I did :). Well, we were having our conversation about black magic, some one remarked that, the skull of the first child in the family helps in getting supernatural powers. After we escaped, some witch somewhere has missed three such skulls (Mine, RP's and Srini's ;D).

The comedy:

To add to this, the driver went missing at Kalahasthi when it was time to start after darshan. We looked out for him for half an hour and eventually found him by making an announcement in the Temple's speaker system!! Surely, Kalahastheeswarar had caused this delay and retained us for good :)

Well, something happened (which I won't write here for parliamentary reasons) with Srini in the bus stand. We boarded the bus on time after a nice lunch and reached Bangalore by 21:30. Took a taxi and reached home.

This again was a memorable experience. Hope this would bring all of us all the goodies that we wanted.

Om Namo Venkatesaya

Om Nama Shivaya

:)

Tirupathi and Sri Kalahasthi visit I

Hmmm... Din't blog for quite a while, as usual. Now, I have got something to write about. Some 6 of us (I, Anand & Ram Prasad, Sriram, Srini and Venkatesh) went to Tirupathi and SriKalahasthi. Here are our experiences and adventures :)

From Bangalore:
Our bus to Tirupathi was on Jul 20, 2007 (Friday), 22:30. I left office by the 18:15 shuttle. RP's house was our meeting point. I, Venkatesh and Sriram reached there by 21:00, Srini also reached there and we went to Majestic by auto(2). On the way, Srini made an attempt to talk in Telugu over phone, with the person who was arranging things for us in Tirupathi. That is when he used Tamilo-Telugu words like "Kilambisthaanu", which catalysed the other person to talk in Tamil, fearing further damage to his beloved mother tongue. I take this opportunity to request Srini not to talk in Telugu any more, at least with people who know Telugu. :). The bus departed at 23:00 from Majestic.

Bugs in Bus:
Keeping in pace with the Indian IT, even the buses have become Tech savvy. The volvo bus we travelled in had "bugs". Whether in software or any where, bugs sure suck. Not only was I a victim but also many other people who were occupying the window seat. I lost sleep and it was very heartening to see the bus reach Tirpuathi in just 4.5 hours. But I was happy with myself, when I woke Anand (sitting next to me) from deep sleep and asked him whether he was also experiencing bug bites :)

In Tirupathi:
Our first agenda was to get a room for 2 hrs for the 6 of us to get ready (answer calls from nature, take bath etc). An agent (if you can call him so) approached us and suggested some places. Firstly, we tried to avoid him. Sriram, in fact, took us along the road, saying, there are many hotels this side, but found only thorny bushes and hence we all turned back and took a place that the agent suggested. It was not bad, given the fact that we were going to use it for not more than 2 hrs. After getting ready, we took a big auto and reached Alipiri (the foothills from where one can start the ascent to Tirumala). We started ascending at 06:10.

The Ascent:
All 6 of us climbed by steps. It was a nice experience as expected. We were celebrating after covering each 1000th step and each km. Total 3550 steps and 9 km. Again, Srini surprised me with his speed of climibing. I could realize that I am growing older :). Eventually, we reached Tirumala around 10:30.

The Darshan:
The person who arranged everything for us, suggested that we go for darshan immediately owing to the rush. So we joined the Q at around 11:00. There we got split into 3 groups (RP & Venkatesh; I, Anand & Srini; Sriram)in the magnitude of the Q. The three groups came out at different times after darshan. It was an amazing sight always to see Him. A great experience. Special thanks to Srini for this.

The birth of "Rules" Ramanujam:
In the queue, two of the groups tried to be Romans in Rome. But Sriram dared to be different. He was much behind and hence came out after more than 30 min and asked Srini "Padichavan thaane nee?". This will go down as the statement of the trip and Sriram will always be remembered for this. There were some arguments there as all of us were hungry and tired. But these are part and parcel of any get together (especially trips), nothing will be memorable without happenings like these :)

The "sleep" and dinner:
We had a not so great lunch. Luckily, we got a guest house booked for us and had a GREAT sleep. During that time Srini got his tonsure done and became the "MOTTAI" Boss and four (except I and Anand) got their tickets for AngaPradhakshinam for the next day. We came back to the guest house after a nice dinner....

The remaining trip will be covered in the part II...

Om Namo Venkatesaya...

Bye!!