By vrtue of sheer size, a large gold embossed image, on a red background, of Lord Venateshwara dominated our small prayer room. However the Lord still didn’t figure high on my list of favourites (I was more of a Siva and Devi worshipper).
It wasn’t till my husband and I faced parental opposition to our wedding that the Lord reminded me of his existence. This was when a colleague of mine told me to pray to Lord Venkateswara that after our wedding, I would climb the hills and conduct a Kalyanotsav for him and the Goddesses Padmavati and Lakshmi. She told me to just pray and the Lord would see to it that I fulfilled my promise.
To cut a long story short, the Lord did ensure that we got married, my parents very much blessing our union, and my husband’s parents also blessing us shortly after. And to keep my promise, my husband and I climbed the 7 hills to Tirumala to conduct the Kalyanotsav for the Lord.
We took the train from Bangalore and reached Tirupati early in the morning. We took a room in a hotel in Tirupati and finished our morning ablutions and started off. A friend of my husband’s had arranged for tickets for the morning darsan and we were to reach there by 10.
We started our trek at about 6. There are steps in the beginning of the climb and we started off with much religious feeling, holding hands in our joyful gratitude to the Lord. However at the end of the third flight of steps, we were getting tired. Alongside us, we watched young gils climbing with a devout spring in their steps- they would bend down and anoint each of the steps with manjal and kumkum and still manage to easily stay ahead of us.
By the time we finished with the third set of steps, we were holding hands more for mutual support and encouragement than for joy at our togetherness. At times, there would be a crowd of youth suddenly rushing past with the chant Govinda Goooovinda on their lips. We would pause and listen and start again. After we went further , I was chanting the name of the Lord in my mind, begging Him for sustenance to complete our climb. (I hadn’t had dinner the previous night, nor any breakfast that morning) And we had to proceed at a good pace as we had to reach there before 9.30 at least.
Finally when I thought I would HAVE to sit down and rest for SOME while, we saw up above us a break - there were some shops there and also a couple of food stalls. I who normally would eat about 2, max 3 idlis, that morning wolfed down 7 idlis in one go! Ah, Lord, it was as if You had come down and offered us those idlis yourself, it was so refreshing and energising, and the tastiest idlis I have ever had anywhere.
After that there weren’t any stretches as steep as the first 4 - it was more an uphill walk, with a few steps in between. On the way , we could stop and feed some cucumber to the deer as well, who were pretty tame and would come to sniff at your fingers through the wire netting. However since we were hard pressed for time, we did not stop for long.
On either side of the way, we could see small stones piled one on on top of the other. I believe it is some form of prayer, however I do not know the significance of it. As we neared the Lord, there was a sense of accomplishment, an expectancy, an excitement, a fervour, a joy building up.
Finally we were there on Tirumala ....
And the people, oh the people! It was a sheer sea of humanity, sitting, lying, standing, walking. One of the lasting impressions I have of Tirumala is of the exemplary cleanliness of the place, in spite of the surging crowds. Almost every 5 minutes, people would go around sweeping up all the litter left unthinkingly, maintaining the cleanlines of the surroundings. My husband’s friend met us and gave us our tickets and we were inside the Q complex.
It was a long wait to see the Lord, but it was not a tiring wait.
Quite to the contrary, there were benches on which the tired devotees could sit and fans to cool us. And hawkers were peddling their wares of buttermilk, water, other small eatables and reading material through the enclosures of the Q complex. It was spread over a vast area and we could see the surroundings of the temple as we passed along the Q.- the tonsuring place, the start of the Q at Rs. 50/-...
Several lines of people had formed at different places ( depending on the rates of their tickets) and from time to time, we would merge together. It was like different tributaries all merging together to reach the final destination- the Lord of Tirumala. At last we move out tof the Q-complex and into the temple proper, where a stream of water cleansed our feet as we entered.By now chants of Govinda, Goooovinda! reverberated in the air. Young, old; kacheevaram clad, polyester clad; dark, fair- all had but one goal- a glimpse of the Lord.
And when you finally get there the beauty of the Lord halts you in your footsteps. You manage to remember to render your thanks from the bottom of your heart for His many blessings, but ultimately all you long for is to remain standing there drinking in your fill of the dark-as-night Lord.
But alas, too much of nectar is not allowed to us earthlings and we are manouevered out of sight of the Lord, to make way for the hungry crowd surging out side, waiting for their chance of intoxication.
We make our way outside to the Lord’s Hundi- a giant cloth bag slung to receive the offerings from devotees.
Legend has it that these offerings go to pay the interest for Lord Kubera’s loan to Srinivasa to conduct his wedding with Padmavati. At the end of every day there has to be a particular amount collected, if not the Lord would be chained. However, till date, the Lord has escaped being chained and Tirupati remains one of the richest temples in the world.
We move out of the temple with a full heart, after having worhipped Garuda and Lakshmi too. And then we go to get our laddoos. The taste of those Tirupati addoos in indescribable. It has to be eaten to be relished. We also get curd rice as it is past noon, I guess.
We retired for the day to our hotel after having booked the Kalyanotsav tickets for tomorrow. This again we took to be a sign of the Lord’s favour, for I believe the tickets have to be booked much in advance. But luckily, we managed to get a ticket after waiting in a q for hours. The next day, we did not climb up, but took the easy way up- the TTD buses, which ply the hills every 5 minutes.
Tirumala is unique among the temples I have visited in that there are 2 ways to the Lord- the way up is different from the way down. This, I gues is to prevent any accidents, owing to speeding and the like. It also means that you get the savour the beauties of the hils form various sides. It aslo explained why, during our climb up, we had never come across any road in the initial stretches ( in my fatigue, I had even thought of cutting short our climb and waiting on the road for the bus, but the Lord in His Omniscience had taken steps to forestall such laziness and ensure that promises were kept)
The final paragraph follows in the Comments