My Tirupati experience

My trip..

I am thinking of writing a novel on it. Some of the highlights are as follows

We caught a bus to Tirupati from Bang at 9 pm. Reached there at 4
afternoon. Seeing the closed counters, we thought the ticket counter
closes at around 3.

Anyway, we headed for the AP government lodging – Srinivasam. This
completely changes our outlook of the AP government, as this Lodge is
clean with a capital C. It has maybe more than a 500 rooms – Normal, AC,
AC+Delux. But rooms available outside this boarding is all expensive,
almost twice the price. We saw a terrific 50 people queue there, So we
thought maybe there are rooms available and can be got if we wait. So
waited there.. for an hour, then the counter was closed for a break for a
hour. At the end of two hours of waiting, they opened the counter and gave
some rooms, as we moved about 5 more spaces, again the counter closed. Now
it was almost 3 hours. Now leaving the queue would be like wasting the 3
hours of wait. So we continued .. for another hour. It was now almost 9pm
and we were waiting since 5pm! Finally the counter opened saying last
round of room distribution for the day. And luckily we got an AC room.

That wait was just the start of the ‘wait’ we would be facing soon..

We learnt that there are different amount tickets for the Balaji Darshan –
like
Free – This is the one where u need not pay anything, but have to be ready
to stand in queue for no definite measure of time.
Rs 50 – This one is fairly long line, but is meant for Darshan of the same
day.
Rs 200 – This is for booking special darshan of next day.
Rs 1000 and more – This is for special darshan of same day, next day..
whenever.

So we planned to buy the Rs 50 ticket, as we wanted to finish the darshan
same day. We came to know the ticket counter would open at 5 AM. Hmm.. Now
it was 9.30 pm, Sat when we checked in, so planned to go in advance for
the line at 3 AM, Sun – That according to us was enough buffered time.

But we were wrong –

We said, maybe all must be thinking that 3 AM is the time to find an
advance position in ticket counter queue, so we went there at 2 AM, SUN.
For our Horror, There were already atleast 500 people in the queue at 2
AM!

Anyway, we said, we still would get the ticket – I mean we were there at 2
AM right..

Wrong again -

When the counter opened at 5 AM.. that’s after we were waiting for 3
hours, the time it took us to reach about ten spaces from the counter, it
took us another 3 hours.. that’s a whole 6 hours.

But the patience is not yet tested –

When were about 10 spaces from the counter, with another 500 people behind
us, the counter CLOSES. They say the tickets for the day are over, so come
back tomoro.

There are some moments in life when u must never loose ur cool – This was it!

So we break the line, like the other 500. Then we realize that there are
atleast 3 other such counters in the Tirupati city – Bus stand, Alleperi,
Tirumal temple, + Srinivasam. It was already too late for even standing in
the Rs 200 line of about 1000 people already.. which actually opens at 8
AM. And the Free ticket counter does not have any words to describe the
amount of people.

Conclusion about tickets for the day – Never under estimate the rush –
specially on weekends.

Now that we had no tickets after a wait of 6 hrs just for the tickets, my
friend came up with a plan.. Why not just see the places around and buy
the Prasadam ladoo and leave.. We can tell aty home we had the darshan!
But thanks to me that I was in my conscious-active days, so we decided to
go to Tirumala and try for the special VIP tickets – If there were any.

Now I believe that the temple organization is doing a great job by
organizing so many things BUT, why would it not keep an easily accessible
counter for the VIP’s atleast?

We went to Tirumala.. that’s on the top of a HUGE mountain. There are
buses, paid and free to take the devotees there. Now if you are afraid of
heights or rash driving, pls do not use the buses.
To go on top, there is a one way road, and another one way to come down.
The road is real steep with many U turns. There is also another staired
foot path provided for the people who would walk to the top. That’s pretty
tough task but people do make it.

Once in Tirumala, we searched and searched for the VIP counter. If you are
not knowing Telugu, I think its better you learn before hand. Anyway, so
finally they have a hall with Cloak room written on the entrance, with no
signs indicating it also has a counter for VIP tickets. The problem is,
even the VIP tickets can be obtained with an hour of wait, the entry is
Jam packed with people waiting for the cloak room entry. So you better be
strong enough to push through.

*Also.. In all the ticket counters, it is compulsory that all the members
who want to be going for darshan be there in the line, as each ones photo
and finger print is taken. That’s pretty bad if you want to take children
or too old people.

So finally on Sun, at abt 1 pm, we got the Rs 1000 tickets for Mon 5.30
darshan. That ticket – I would call the ticket of life.. man, you have to
be patient like anything.

So for the rest of Sun, we were free. But wanted to do something very very
important – SLEEP

But I had decided to give away my hair, so I thought of doing it that time
only. So I told my friend to wait and I went ahead to stand in another
queue! So there I was in a queue and I got a blade, some sandlewood tablet
to be applied later on head, and the barber number….. EXCUSE ME.. yes
BARBER ID. There are atleast 50 barbers in really big halls with each
barber having a queue of atleast 10 people whose head is to be shaved. My
turn was up and I was there watching my hair fall off. Once that was done,
I had to take a bath. THIS was THE sight I saw in Tirupati after Balaji.

There are about 25 bathrooms in a Sub bathroom hall. And about 20 such Sub
bathroom halls in a HUGE bathroom hall. And there are 2 such huge bathroom
halls.. for MEN and another 2 for WOMEN.

But yes, these bath rooms are really not maintained well. So you would
rather move out of there ASAP.

We came back down to tirupati and rested for the day end. I had to extend
my flight plan by another day.

So the next day came up and we actually got up early.. that’s coz we
planned to visit some other known places around Alliperri.

Monday morning we first went to see the stair foot path provided to be
walked up to the temple. This is really no easy task and after walking a
hundred steps, we planned to return back down. We estimated it to take
atleast 4 hours to reach up.

One thing the temple authorities have made sure is, no matter which line
you are standing in, you will get food and water access and access to
bathrooms. That’s really a relief.

Next we went to see the Water fall.. actually that’s the place they say we
must come after shaving off the head.

Then we went to the ISKCON temple around the same place. This was one of
the most beautifully decorated temples I have visited.

After these 3 spots we came back to out hotel. With some lunch, we were
really tired of the heat, so just went to sleep till 3pm. We had to be
there for the darshan at 5 30 pm. So caught up a bus again to Tirumala and
reached the temple in an hour. In all this hurry, we did not realize that
we were carrying our mobile phones. These are not allowed inside the
temple, so had to keep them in the Cloak room lockers. Yes there was a
line there, and another for keeping our shoes.

It was now ten min to go and we had to search the place where the VIPs
entry is. We went to the ‘INFORMATION CENTER’ – there are many of these
every 300 meters. The guy here saw our ticket and said, Oh, you cannot go
like this for the VIP darshan.. The rule says ‘Grahast people must wear
dhoti’. So there we were already short of time and this was news to us.
This chap says, I can help you out.. He just closes the INFORMATION CENTER
and says lets go. He takes us to his shop near by and makes my friend buy
and wear a new dhoti – this dhoti had nothing special in it but since he
was helping us at time of crisis, so the price of dhoti almost tripled.

Anyway, finally it was 5 30 pm, and he pointed us where to run to.. We
reached there, and realized we had been conned by this man and the dhoti
part was tru to only Grahast people – or married people. Anyway. So here I
and my friend were watching the Aarti of a beautiful golder balaji statue.
This is the same small statured balaji thast normally shown in TV
channels. This is NOT the actual Balaji.

The actual Balaji darshan was to happen at 6 pm -  that’s for the VIP’s
the door would be opened then. Since the aarti was continueing and we knew
if we are sitting here more, we will surely miss the darshan for today
too.. so got up and ran to the VIP entry doors.

Since the time we were in Tirupati, the only place where there was no
queue was this VIP gateway. That was coz all other VIP were at the aarti.
So we were really excited to go without any crowd..

Wrong again..

It seems the VIP also is a human being and has to join the other people at
a distance of about 500 mtrs before the darshan. So we were really close
to the Balaji Darshan but in a queue. We were now in the temple and could
see the inscriptions on the wall and paintings.

As we got closer, we could hear the ‘Govinda’ chanting getting higher and
also could saw some drums being played. The temple is really huge with
unimaginably huge doorways to the entry and the lights and decoration give
you the feel that you are in the Gods Abode.

So finally we were in front of the Balaji. The statue is to be seen from
quite a distance, about 15 mtrs as there are 7 doors to the statue, with
only oil lit deepa’s as the source of light inside. The statue is atleast
10 feet tall.. maybe more so can be seen as a really majestic figure with
gold and flower decorations. We could hardly be in front of it for about
ten seconds. And then we were thrown out by the people behind.

Outside is a view of the Gopura – temple top, that is unimaginable. The
complete thing is made of GOLD. You start realizing that Gold is used like
stones for this temple. No wonder it’s the richest temple in the world!

There was a Garuda statue amidst many gods inscribed on the gold Gopura.
The Garuda holds a special position and so, its been shown with a big
Golder arrow indicated to the Garuda.
There was a Lakshmi statue, made of Gold on one of the walls, They said ,
you must throw coin at its leg and pick up another from there. We did so,
it was fun.

We were out of the main temple area soon and went on to take the famous
ladoo prasadams. For this again there was a queue!

At 7 45 pm, we were running to catch a bus to go to Tirupati, as we had
the checkout time at 8 30.
We checked out on time and left to bus stand, just to realize that the
tickets were sold out for Banglore – All the tickets. So we were now
stranded. I had to be in Banglore as I had a flight at 1 pm next day and
my friend was really tired of all the running.

Finally we got tickets in black and left Banglore at 10 pm.