Tirumala in Andhra Pradesh

Govinda Govindaa!

Nestled amidst peaks of seven hills of Tirumala in Andhra Pradesh, Tirupati Balaji takes you to another level of faith

Prerna Katiyar

MORNING 5 am, you are standing in a serpentine queue waiting for your turn for the final darshan at Tirupati as the devotees old and young chant in chorus Govinda Govindaa without a pause. Your mind is still confused reflecting on the thought whether all the efforts and the wait is worth for. You are thinking why you are here just because you have heard about the shrine from so many people or is it to satisfy that religious streak that almost every Hindu inherits from birth. What is it that pulls crowds from different faith and religion to this holy shrine, you wonder!
But when you have the final darshan, all your bewilderment, doubts and fatigue is put to rest. Thats the impact Tirupati Balaji has on you.
Our visit to Tirupati Balaji, nestled amidst the peaks of the seven hills of Tirumala in Andhra Pradesh, was simply luck by chance . We were on a short trip to Bangalore . Thinking that staying in the malled hi-tech city was not the kind of break we had planned, the idea of visiting the shrine crept in. So we booked the overnight bus and a darshan package for Tirumala-Tirupati reaching there in about seven hours.
Hitting Tirumala, the base station for the final journey to Tirupati temple, our escort took us to a cottage. And after an hours break, we headed for the shrine that is some 20 km from Tirumala. The journey across the sprawling hills and meandering road was quite an experience in itself for us metro-dwellers .
To facilitate the darshan, there is a computerised system allowing pilgrims to book their tickets well in advance and allots a fixed time for the darshan. Our darshan timing according to the token was 7:30 am. An amazing feature of this temple was that you are not rushed off immediately after you have the darshan. The chants that run in the background create a perfect backdrop. Lord Venkateshwara Swamy or Balaji the main deity is said to the incarnation of Lord Vishnu.
Our experience till this point was troublefree but when we exited the main mandapto collect the prasada that you get only in lieu of the token, we realised that it was lost! Hence began the hard part of first trying to figure out were we might have lost it and then to find some alternative way to get Bhagwan ka prasada. To our disappointment, we were told that one cant get the prasada by giving cash. Token we couldnt find but thankfully we were able to find our escort who was waiting for us outside. Some local dialect, some jugaad and some moolah finally did the trick for him to arrange the prasada for us. Thank God we got it!
Our return journey to Bangalore had to start in the night, so we had enough time to visit other temples in the town. The escort told us that close to a lakh pilgrims visited the shrine everyday and on a few occasions , the number even reached six to seven lakh. Being one of the richest shrines of the world, the bhet offered at the temple runs in billions of rupees. It was an experience to watch the counting of the donations that happens in a huge hall. Donation of gold jewellery and coins also form part of the bhet no wonder the temple is the richest of all. Many people get their hair tonsured here too. The amount of hair collected daily is over a tonne. Interestingly , the hair is sold by the temple in a public auction to international buyers for use as hair extensions bringing in over $6 million to the temples treasury.
So when at Tirupati, feel the difference, try the local meals, visit the nearby temples and parks, keep your hair or lose it, but for Gods sake take good care of your token!

NAVI GATO R



BY AIR:

Tirupati airport is at Renigunta, 15 km from town

BY TRAIN:

It is connected to all major towns of Andhra & big cities of South India

BY ROAD:

It is 253 km from Bangalore & 145 km Chennai

PACKAGES:

Rs 1,800 a day at Fortune Kences Hotel