Never thought in my dreams !!!

It was since May we were planning for a trip, finally we decided in July, that we will be going to Tirupati.
Somehow we scheduled it for 6th Aug 2010, but concern was "WE" means who all?? Was a big question. Then Singer came up with few names, few names turned into good count. Finally we were 10 of us who were ready for the trip.

Mr. Singer, Myself, Miss AYW, Mr. Silent and Mr. IT Savvy all gathered at singer's place, then headed towards our boarding point, where rest of the group member's were waiting. I knew only 5 out of 10 members in group, so rest were first time to meet. Miss Anjaani (Parvati), Jaya & Sarita, collogue of Singer. Ms. KhabiNa (Roopa) and Manasa friends of Sarita. We all had a formal talk and boarded the bus at 10:30pm from Majestic KSRTC Bus Stand. This was the first time that I had stepped into KSRTC bus stand, so as expected it was fully crowded, buses were scattered all over, except where they were to stand, could see all the waste and crap floating on floor, along with people smoking and littering the place as if it was their personal property. In describing the condition of bus stand, I missed out one person, Mr. Guest Appearance, within the group, so now we were 11 instead of 10. I will be referring Mr. Guest Appearance as Mr. GA. He is friend of Miss KhabiNa, she met him by chance and mentioned him about our trip and he decided to join us, only 10 seats were reserved, so we had to manage one extra seat, somehow Singer our trip manager arranged for it. But there were some hiccups and confusion, after a long discussion between Mr. GA and Miss KhabiNa; we got to know that he had dropped the plan of joining us. So the count again turned to 10 from 11.


Finally our journey started at around 11pm, hats off to government services for maintaining the Indian Standard Time. All were relaxed and seated, and eagerly waiting to reach destination.

Next day morning at 4:30am we reached Tirupati, by 6:30am we all were ready. Now the main amazing part of the trip was about to begin. You all may be wondering why the title "Never thought in my dreams!!!" The reason is we all had decided to climb up the mountain by talking steps. As I had ligament injuries in my foot, my friends had given me option of going by bus. But I had not decided anything, I told them, will come there and then decide what to do. So the moment had arrived for me to take the decision. It was around 7:30am when we reached the spot from where we had to climb up, and I made up my mind and told my friends that I will accompany them and took the steps. The total number of steps that we had to climb was unknown to all. We started our foot journey, few on bare foot, few with shoes/ chapals on. None of us had taken breakfast, and we kept on climbing the steps, in-between we got some stalls where we could have our breakfast. But as it was start of journey, all were in full enthu and fresh, and few had specific requirement of having Idly, because dosa will be oily and will spoil the health etc, so rest also decided that all will have at one place only, because time was major constraint. We could not spend time twice for breakfast, all decided to move on and have at some later stage. We climbed step after step, but we dint find any stalls which were serving breakfast. All were hungry and eager to have breakfast. Myself and Mr. IT Savvy were walking and suddenly he busted out with a dialogue "Known Devil is better than unknown Angel", hope you got this, he was talking about the requirement of Idly which few of them asked, when we dint find any stalls, which served dosa also, we all had a good laugh, took rest and again started to climb the steps. Almost all were exhausted and eager, finally we reached a level where we found a stall which was serving breakfast, at this moment (very funny) all said whatever is there we will have, but for good luck, demanded idly were present in that stall, we got IDLI's at last. Had nice breakfast, tea and again started.

Miss Anjaani (Paru) was always leading the group, she was ahead of everyone, used to reach some point and wait for rest of us for almost more than 15mins. We all reached a point where we completed 1200 steps, we were very happy, thought that we reached the temple. But our happiness lasted only for few seconds, because later we got to know that we have just crossed less than half of our way.

The total steps that we had to cover was 3550, we took our photo identity coupon and again started our journey. Jaya and Mr. Silent had great courage as they had decided not to eat anything until darshan. Similarly I had decided, that I will not sit until I reach the temple, by grace of GOD, the whole group was successful in achieving in what they had thought.

Finally we reached temple at around 12:30pm, totally around 5 hrs we walked. Before visiting lord Venkatesha, we had to take blessing of Padmavati and Lord Varah. I remember going to Varah temple but not to Padmavati temple, with great difficulty and after searching for more than 45mins, we got Lord Varah temple. We moved from that the temple after taking darshan of lord varah. We headed towards the main temple, after walking for around half an hour; we reached the main spot, where the queue was to take divya darshan. But for our bad fate, we could not proceed further, reason was, temple had few rules for dress code. All women should wear saree or salwar with dupatta and no men should be in Bermuda’s or shorts. Miss KhabiNa and Manasa were on kurta and jeans, so the temple authority had a chance to stop us. We had to go and get dupatta, towel, stall or big scarf. Mr. Singer, Mr. IT Savvy, Miss KhabiNa and Manasa went to get any of the above, they returned with 2 scarfs. We entered the queue and in-between we had to handover our mobiles and camera's, which took around 40mins. After a great sign of relief, we were in actual queue, which lead to divya darshan, waited for an hour in the same. While we were waiting in queue, we had some fun and jokes. Time had arrived, when we had to enter the main temple for darshan, and the situation was so horrible, the temple management is worst, no one is there to manage the crowd. People started pushing and pulling each other, after all this, we entered garbha gudi, where most of the temple authority was present to push people like luggage in some station. When I was the scene, I felt very bad; this is how people are treated? Like group of sheep or cow??

After so much pain and struggle, the devotee's reach GOD, the temple authority doesn't allow people to stand for a second to offer their prayers.

Within few seconds we all were out, after successful in taking darshan. We had to go back and get our mobiles & cameras. So we decided we will divided the group in 3, where one group had to go and collect mobiles/camera, 2nd group had to collect coupon ladoo's and 3rd group had to bring extra ladoo's for whole group. But in reality this dint happen, we could see each and every one in building, where ladoo's were distributed. Everyone was exhausted, so it was quite obvious that we wanted to sit down in some cool place. Finally we collected our belongings and landed outside temple. I guess, it was around 6:30pm when we completed our journey for divya darshan by taking foot way.

We boarded the bus to Tirupati, reached at 7:30pm. Since from morning we had only breakfast, all were hungry, so we decided to have dinner and then go to room, at 9pm we reached room.

We had to board the bus to Bangalore at 11:30pm, so we had 2hrs with us to have sleep. Within no time, we all girls were in deep sleep till 11pm; I am not sure about boys. Now it was time to get up and get ready, in sleepy mood everyone reached bus stand, boarded the bus and our journey back to Bangalore started. Sunday, 8th August 2010, at 5:30am we reached Bangalore, we all said a sweet bye to everyone and headed to our final destination. Reached pg at 7am, slept the whole day.

Now you may have got to know, why the title of blog is "Never thought in my dreams!!!"

I, never in my dreams, dared to take steps in Tirupati, to get darshan. I think I am quite lucky in this :-)

Thanks to whole group, who made this trip memorable and beautiful.

Thoughts !!!

Want to put many thoughts in words, but not able to do so....
I am not gifted with such a wonderful talent, where I can play with my words.
So my thoughts remain as thoughts in my mind and heart.