Many a times we plan and work for certain things and things don’t fall in our way and at times things work for us just as easily as we snap our finger.
My tirupati trip was one such. I certainly feel it was the call of the divine.
We were always orally planning a trip to Tirupati in the past few years, to be precise 7 years. Everytime the name of the place came up, we would say we would make a day’s trip from Chennai, but when in Chennai we would have no time to make a trip. Though Tirupati is in Andhrapradesh, it is closer to Chennai and we manage to visit Chennai annually but our tirupati trip never happened.
But recently on a weekend last month, I and my husband decided to travel to Tirupati since both our children would be away on excursion. We went to the local TTD to book our ticket, we were told by the authorities that due to Brahmotsavam there were no cottages or darshan tickets during end sept. Finally we booked our tickets for mid oct with our thumb impression.
Two days later, my son’s friend called up to talk to my son, before I could put him to my son, I was asking him if he had packed his things and was all set for the excursion. The conversation between him and me went like this
He said ‘Haan aunty, V and S( my daughter and his sis are class mates) are leaving in the morning, I and S( my son) are leaving in the afternoon and mama and papa are leaving by the evening train.
Me: Kahan jaa rahen hai mama and papa?.
He: Tirupati,
I immediately asked his mom whom we knew very well for the past 10 years, how they could manage to visit Tirupati during Brahmotsavam and she said her husband regularly travels to Tirupati as he has his business links there,so it should’nt be a problem. They told us also to book our train tickets and the rest could be managed there.
And that’s how our sudden trip to Tirupati came up during Brahmotsavam, with a planned mid- oct darshan ticket it happened in end-sept.
Though I was apprehensive about the Brahmotsavam crowd, We thought since the children were not with us we could even stand for as many hours in the queue and have our darshan. Our waitlisted tickets got confirmed in time and after my daughter and son left by the morning and afternoon train, we too left to Tirupati along with the Kapoors.
I generally hate crowded temples/places and Tirupati on any day, is not just crowded but always over-crowded , then Imagine how the crowd would be around Brahmotsavam.
But to our surprise, the crowd was very less in Tirupati, not even the regular crowd, Thanks to the T-Bandh, It was cut off from 14 districts and the people of neighbouring states were perhaps apprehensive and so the service providers like Cab guys, hoteliers told us they were making less business.
On reaching Tirupati, My husband decided to trek up to Tirumala from Tirupati. I decided to join him. Will share about this in my next post.
Yeah, sometimes things just fall in place without any effort from us. It is nice that you could finally have a good darshan. Even many years ago I too had thought I must visit Thirupathi, but did not do anything about it. I had also prayed that I would do Anga pradshanam, not knowing at all how I would be doing it.
ReplyDeleteBut after few years my husband's cousin planned for the trip, and she remembered my desire to do Anga pradshanam, she invited me to come with them. You know we got all the Sevas as VIPs because her Father in law was the Governor of Andaman and Nicobar at that time, and things went so smoothly. And since she also had promised to do Anga pradshanam, we both did it together with her aunt guiding us through it.
Even Ajmer Dhargha, which I just thought i will visit once when i had read about it casually in some magazine, and my wish was granted many years later one fine day in Rajasthan, when all of a sudden our taxi fellow said he could take us to see the Dargha, and suddenly i realized that I had always wanted to see it, but had totally forgotten about it even though I had planned the trip and was so close by.
I am sorry I have written such a long comment.
I've heard people say (esp regarding a Tirupati trip) that if the Lord has plans to see us, he will make sure that we get to see him.. Sometimes , i wonder how things would have been if it weren't this crowded and that "he" was more accessible.. for say old people.. Seeing some old people wait for hours together for a darshan makes me cringe and wonder why we have complicated something as simple as seeking blessings from him ..
ReplyDelete@ Rama - that was a nice read. Thank you for sharing:)
ReplyDelete@Bhargavi- yes, It's really sad to see strong people mindlessly elbowing out week people especially old. Thank you:)