It was planned and planned and re-planned and out of nowhere it just happened. Weeks and weeks of build up and the D-day came in such suddenness that it didn't sink in the heart. But all good things don’t come as a great package. Tuesday 21 Sep 2010 it was, at 7 AM we started from Raghav's home in his Innova. He, his father, mother, brother Arun, granny, his driver and of-course me were in the trip.
As anticipated the journey started with a strong argument if AR Rahman was as good as he has been portrayed or if poet and lyricist Vairamuthu was a better one than his contemporaries. There was minimum participation from Rags dad and mom and a reasonable retaliation with hi point of view from Arun. It was so irritation that I completely lost the feeling that I was even going to a temple. Still pulling my senses and composure started meditating and occasionally humming a few lines of the songs on the music player.
We broke fast at a hotel on the Bangalore highway around 8 and got back to the argument of who was great yet again. It was around 11 we reached the temple of Lakshmi (Thaayaar temple) wife of Balaji and paid our respects. There was a big ritual of consecrated fire happening with Vedic chants. After a quick prayer we started to the nearby Srinivasa Perumaal temple and offered our salutations to him. Next stop Tirupathi temple, after our lunch of-course.
First time is always exciting they say, but I was not even in the same area code to excited. The ride over the mountain wasn't exciting either. It was a hot day and passing by the trees was soothing and it is one of those places you can find in the entire India where the whole environment is being maintained clean. Hats off to such a social effort!
The meeting with Balaji was arranged by an insider who could exercise partial influence to sneak past through a major part of the crowd. We entered into the temple at 2.30. The crowd was overwhelming and after a crushing and pushing time into the tower our group got separated where Rags and me were pushed back and the rest made it thru well ahead of us to meet HIM. When my turn came after 1 and half hours, I was allowed to see HIM for a minute and ... that’s it. I just couldn't make the difference between HIM and any other Balaji deity. He was covered with Gold, ornaments and flowers standing alone and nothing much, nothing unusual as I expected as the stories behind the temple were told. No goose bumps, no extravaganza but just another meeting with HIM.
Then we moved out and had a view of other places of interest in the temple and finally came out at 4.40 PM. From there we moved higher on the mountain and went to a place called Paadham or Foot where it is said that the Lord descended on Earth. Next stop Sri Kaalahasthi temple the temple of Air. We reached there around 5.30 and it was a quick meeting with Shiva and after paying our respects to him we started homestead. It was around 9 PM that we reached and all the while Arun was in his elements splitting us all with his arguments and views. We made it to the Saravana Bhavan in Anna Nagar has a filling supper or rather dinner and that was the end of the day.
It was a long day and meeting HIM in HIS palaces of grandeur it was well spent day rather.
