Thirumala Thirupathi Trip
Tirupathi! The very name sounds a lot of emotions for millions across the multiverse. Laddoos, long standing queues, tonsures, jarugandi jarugandi, edukondalaavaada, S.P.Balasubramanian’s devotional songs. It is the world’s busiest and richest temple, most buzzling. Amidst all these, stands Perumal for eons, who connects with each and every one of us through some magic that one can only feel and experience. To say it and put it into words will not do justice by any stretch of imagination but trying to share an iota of what we went through.
25 years ago, I was an atheist trying to question the very existence of God and such. But this Perumal was the one who changed me forever for good. As an atheist, I questioned him in my mind, “why are people so mad to look at a stone and that is YOU. I do not believe this. If YOU really have powers, then get me a job immediately, thanks to seeing a million movies. I got a job very soon. Slowly, I started to believe in HIM and I feel HE is there in each and every step of everybody’s lives. I wanted to and went to meet HIM for the first time in 2003 to express my gratitude. The next time was in 2008 right after my marriage. And the third time was now in 2026, after our Acharyan swamy had gone to do service to HIM in SriVaikuntam.
This time, me, my wife and two kids drove all the way from Chennai via car. The roads were very good and the fact that they are expanding it for more lanes was encouraging. We prayed at Govindarajapuram and Thiruchanoor. It was a hot afternoon. We later proceeded to the hill from Alipiri. It was a 45 minute drive which was very smooth. We reached Thirumala at 4:00 p.m. We checked into our rooms and were quickly all set to go and immerse ourselves in the realms of the magician in HIS premises. We visited Sri Ananthaazhwaan gardens, the acharya who came to Thirupathi 1000 years ago on the order of his Acharya Sri Ramanuja to do pushpa kainkaryam to Perumal here. It was such a serene and beautiful place.
Then we started to enter the queue at around 7:30 p.m. We had already prepared the kids that it is the busiest temple and we need to be patient to see Perumal and it is not similar to any other temple, wherein we can come the next day as well in case we missed it. The kids were super duper enthusiastic to see HIM. We progressed very quickly for 3-4 minutes before stopping on to our first point. We sat there on the floor for 30-40 minutes. It was pleasantly cool, we had our food as well and topped it off with a nice ginger tea and so no complaints at all. We were happily seated and playing some random word games. Suddenly, there would be a huge sound of “Govinda! Venkatramana!” and the people would get up and go forward for 3-4 minutes and then stop. In each stop were those people who sold buttermilk, frooti etc. The one thing that was painful to see was that there was no proper disposal of such garbage. The scale of people coming here is so huge and the temple management and government have already done an extraordinary job of having a streamlined operation but if there is something to improve, it is proper waste management techniques up the hill.
Back to the story, back to the queue actually. There were fans all over the queue that cooled off the people. You cannot escape yourself from listening to other people’s stories unless you have a headset and want to be deliberately oblivious.. People have all the time to talk about anything and everything in the world. Some were good, some were inspiring, some were gossip, some were “want to forget but can’t” types. It’s a mixed bag. We crossed the 1.25 hour waiting time in the queue and were ushered to the place where they checked each and everyone’s Aadhar card and verified if we did have a legitimate ticket. I was very impressed by this as there were rules set in place. We had booked for the Kalyana uthsavam e-seva ticket and that was corroborated with the system and there we went to the next point where it was a big chamber with TV. They also served prasadham to make sure people were not hungry. There were also well maintained wash room facilities.This by itself is a huge thing to cater to devotees of epic proportions and I was quite happy about the whole thing. Some people were checking cricket scores and were happily entertained and hence the wait did not matter to them. Some people were without any kids and they were just fine standing in the line. There was a newly married couple who came straight out of the dias probably, after a long retinue of festivities to the temple. There were people who came to thank Perumal, there were some who could not exist without seeing HIM for a long time, there were some who wanted to have a business deal with Perumal, some with kids who probably would have come for a miracle in their baby’s lives. The list would go on and on like the queue itself. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, it was all one goal, to have a 1 second darshan of the Great Thirupathi Perumal. It was really scintillating and astonishing at the same time for me to see these in person.
We waited the longest in this queue chamber. There were people from all over India, from 1 month old to 80 years old. Some slept on the floor. By the looks of their slumber, I guessed it would have been at least 3 hours. Some slept for 30 minutes. It was the longest wait and it was a kind of closed space that can make it slightly claustrophobic. Added to this, the uncertainty about when we could proceed to the next stop really exacerbated the situation. It was 9:30 p.m. The kids were getting impatient and we tried to make sure that the queue would be moving soon. The reason kids were impatient was that they had been in scorching heat in Thiruchanoor and it was super tiring. Then we came to Tirupati and so their complaint was justifiable. We tried to take tricks out of our sleeves to entertain them but in vain. So, we thought okay, “maybe we will come here one more time and plan better by directly coming to Thirupati first without any agenda earlier in the day”. So we went to the guard and said, “Hey! Our kids are getting tired and would you please mind letting us go from this chamber and the queue eventually?”. The guard did not let us go and dismissed us quickly by saying, “Only in extreme emergency do we open it. What you are experiencing is nothing along the lines of emergency. Sorry sir.” Though he was right, we were not convinced and went to the guard on the other side of the door. He too said the same thing. If one was koyil kaapan and another was vaayil kaapan both were determined to give us good sevai of Perumal. There were infants who were crying, infants who were sleeping and so we thought “ok this is not an emergency”.
We set artificial time limits and told kids “by 10:00 p.m. they will open” etc. While all these were happening, I was having a one-way conversation with Srinivasan,Thiruvenkatamudayan, Thirupathi Perumal. It was a very miniscule mental transformation from ambi to anniyan mode asking Perumal these silent questions in my mind. A similar kind in my wife’s mind as well. Here are those 18 things that crossed my mind:
Is it fair on YOUR part to make devotees wait for such a long time?
What if someone develops a medical condition
Look at the babies out there, will they stand YOUR stern test?
Look at the elderly out there. They have come out a long way and stood a long way as well.
Look at the newly married. They look dead tired yet want to see YOU. Please make them happy as they begin their new journey of life.
What if some VVIP comes suddenly. Will our wait time be increased further?
If this is considered a “premium” queue, what about those people who come in dharma darshan who will have an even wider array of reasons and stories to see YOU? Don’t YOU think YOU are shackling their confidence, will they come to YOU again?
My kids’ first task list is to see 106 divya desams. They have sustained and continued interest in spirituality. If they are not able to see YOU today, what will we tell them?.
What can we say to make them motivated at the same level that they are today?
Don’t YOU want our kids to frequent YOU for the rest of their lives?
Don’t YOU want us to come again and again?
Don’t YOU want us to feel refreshed and rejuvenated to see YOU next time or do YOU want us to feel dreaded when there is an imminent journey to Thirupathi next?
We have told the kids that it is not that we are going to see YOU, rather YOU will see them and that will make them happy. Don’t YOU want to bring a smile to their faces?
My wife has worn the Andal prasadam sari and is this what YOU give for it? We are from Srivilliputhur. Will Andal be happy about it?
We are coming after 18 years. In 2008 when me and my wife came, YOU blessed us with Acharyan swamy. This time, our Acharyan swamy is not here in this world and is serving YOU right up there in YOUR eternal abode of Paramapadham. How will he feel if YOU do this to us?
Everyone will ask us “How was darshan at Thirupathi”? If we say , “we went, we stood in the queue, we gave up and we went back to our hotel rooms”, will this not cast a bad name on YOU”?
We are talking a lot about YOUR glories in all the upanyasams. Isn’t this YOUR responsibility to give us good darshan? I started with a waxing “You better do” before gradually waning towards “YOU please do”.
We have a name that starts with YOU. Thirumalai Vinjimoor. What are YOU going to say for this?
All kinds of emotions ran during that time. I feel that is why Perumal makes people wait inorder to do a lot of introspection which we never do otherwise. To make us talk to HIM directly, to ask Him, to plead HIM, to request HIM, to yell at HIM and finally to surrender unto HIM eventually. We are not azhwars nor we are asuras. We are caught somewhere in that line, probably leaning more towards the asuras side but again not yet there completely as well. Caught in the samsara saagaram, the ocean of worldly miseries, nammazhwar’s “Angutren allen ingutren allen (neither there nor here) is what came to my mind at that time. While the oscillations of our mind continued to flutter and drop like a dead ECG, Perumal up there would have seen a million, if not infinite number of situations like this, witnessing the vicissitudes of life unfold right in front of HIM. What are we in front of HIM, who are we to ask HIM questions, what did we even do to stand a chance to be in that elite queue? . The mind went crazy as azhwars captured “mandhi paai vadavenkata maamalai”. The mind would go haywire like monkeys atop Thirumala hills would do. The energy drained, mind subdued and when everything was low, one thing that kept everyone going from time immemorial - the sound of “Govindha, Venkatramana”. The very name that kept azhwars going when they fainted and collapsed. The same name to the rescue again to us mortals, though we did not faint akin to azhwars of course. “Govindha! Govindha Govindha! again.
The queue chamber started to move. I learned that India had won the match against England. We were trying to take cues from those and I was thinking “Look! India had won and so we will also win when we see Perumal. It felt as though the mind (India) has won over the foreign enemies (England) including desire, anger, lust, jealousy etc., that come to contaminate the mind.
There were baggage checks at this stage and from this point the queue kept inching towards the climax. It was the last 45 minute to 1 hour queue. We were let out of the chamber and we started inhaling fresh outside air that seemed to say “you will not be let out nor left out”. Another line from a song, “You can check out anytime but you can never leave”, an eerie line from Hotel California song crossed my mind and disappeared into that thin fresh air soon.. We were watching the sannidhis while in the queue. It was around 11:45 p.m. that we finally got a chance to enter the revered official entrance of the temple.
I was lifting my son on my shoulder so that he gets a good glimpse of Perumal even at a distance. One swami joined the line to go for his duty, he saw us and walked right behind us until he could go to his designated duty spot. We gave him the way to proceed further as we thought he was one of the bhattar swamy who does the priestly job to Perumal. The last few minutes were probably like 5-10 minutes from near the entrance till the place where you can see Perumal was pure goosebumps, everybody shouting “Govindha” in ecstasy. We were slowly progressing and that swami asked us to keep right so as to get a good darshan of Perumal which we obeyed without any hesitation. We were inching to climax. Our son was able to see Perumal first sitting on my shoulder. Then came the perfect spot where they usually let a 1 second darshan. We had 2 second darshan actually first and was mighty pleased to see Perumal and before we were trying to snake our way through out of the queue, that swamy caught us and pulled us out of the queue. We came out. He took me by his hand, I had just dropped my son down. He asked us to wait right there where we could see Perumal. We saw , rather Perumal saw us for 10 seconds. It was Thursday and so it was Nethra Darshan of Perumal. After 10 seconds, I was like “Thanks a lot swamy. This is like a dream come true moment for us. He did not leave us. I was like “Swamy! Being in this place for more than 2 seconds is surreal and that is all we wanted. Kids also are super happy now. But he did not leave us yet. He made the kids have a special exclusive darshan of Perumal for 2 minutes. Then me and my wife. Then all of us together. He went towards Perumal and asked the volunteer akka not to leave us out of the queue. While we were watching him, he went and brought flowers directly from Perumals’ thirumeni (body) and gave them to us. Then he made a darshan of Perumal again for all of us.. Mix and match kids and parents. We stood there. We saw Perumal Perumal saw us for a whopping 18 minutes in total. It felt Perumal was saying,”It “You can do whatever you can, you can choose to do whatever you want and choose not to do whatever you don’t want, but at the end of the day it is I who decide what you get and what you do not get. Are you happy now?”. I do not have anything to respond to that truth. We were just awestruck to see the magic unraveling to us. That swamy did not leave us yet. He took us to the place where the mother of Perumal “VAKULA MAALIKA DEVI‘ can be seen. Then he took us to a special place where they keep the adorned vasthram (clothes) of Perumal. He asked us to smell that and it was divine. He gave theertham there. Everything was miraculous. He showed Emperumaanar Sannidhi and asked son to learn Aagamam.. The regular flow of words was not happening to me as it all felt magical and so was stammering a bit. We were following whatever he said and were totally floored by the leela of Perumal. I feel it is Perumal HIMSELF who came in this form. We asked him about his whereabouts and he told us his name is Krishna and he has relations in Srivilliputhur’s Veda Piraan bhattar. Whatever be the connections, we believe HIM to be Thiruvenkatamudayaan HIMSELF.
Then I realised that for each and everyone in the queue a different kind of experience that they can relate 100% would have happened and that is why people love to see Perumal again and again . All the pain standing in the queue would vanish like how the labor pain goes away once seeing the baby in hand for the mother. For ordinary people like us, if it was like this, I was imagining how much azhwars and acharyas would have yearned to see this Perumal and what sort of anubhavams HE would have given them. Words would fail, intellect would fail. It would have been pure ecstasic relish.
In terms of time, we came yesterday, HE saw us today, and had something for tomorrow. Let me explain the “tomorrow’ part here. We went to the hotel room and slept, still not able to digest what just happened. A few more hours passed and me and my son got up for the next event - Saatrumurai sevai. Local people and well informed connections asked us to be there at 7:30 a.m.. But we went to the spot at 6:47 a.m. itself thinking that it is good to be early. But Perumal had different plans. Saatrumrai that day supposedly started at 6:30 a.m. itself. We tried to beg the security guards but in vain, even after looking at the innocent face of my son. There were some who came all the way from America to Australia who missed this opportunity. It is totally up to HIM to decide whom HE wants and when HE wants to run what. This will be evident here in this divine place of Thiruvenkatam. We could not get Saatrumurai sevai but we told ourselves, “Do not worry! It is Perumal’s way of making us come back again here”. We went to Koneri pushkarini, had a prokshanam and went to Sri Varahar sannidhi, the actual person who owns this hill. We had good darshan there and from there we went to the room and eventually to Chennai. We were still thinking about the night before and expressed our desire to come again. For this magical place, it is HE who has to call and nothing on our part can do anything. Though this is the universal truth, Thirupathi Perumal proves to you in action.
Govinda Govinda Govinda!!