IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF BUDDHA

Santa, a school student, was making a serious attempt at completing his examination paper within the given time when he suddenly stood up and started to dance. The examiner was taken aback. “What do you think are you doing?” she asked. “Well,” replied Santa, “there is a question here which says that there are marks for every step.” For us, now into our fourth year of making an annual trip to a place of historical and religious importance, the flagging off was with getting the steps of passage and arrival right. In fact, it was an exercise in coordination and logistics what with Harsha coming from Singapore, Ganesh from Vadodara, Gajanan from Katiar in Bihar, Rajesh from Mumbai and I, Vipul, Dilip and Vaidyanathan making our way to Gaya from Pune via Delhi and Patna.

Arrive we did at Gaya on the evening of Sunday, February 22, 2013 but not before crossing some hurdles. Vaidya, for instance, was carrying with him a weight measuring machine that was to be given to Gajanan and was asked by the security personnel at the Pune Airport to remove all the packaging and show them what it was, particularly so because just a day ago Hyderabad had suffered casualties due to a bomb blast and security across India had been beefed up in a typical knee-jerk reaction. And then I was in for a shocker when the scanner at the airport revealed a Swiss knife in my rucksack. What was the knife doing there? I had no clue at all! Fortunately, they didn’t march me to the nearest police station and we boarded the Go Air flight in time. In Kolkata, where Harsha, Ganesh and Rajesh had met up prior to taking the flight to Gaya, a search for sarees had almost led to missing the flight.

Anyway, after an evening well-spent on catching up with the latest in our lives and pulling each other’s legs into late hours, Monday morning saw the ‘pilgrim fathers’, as Gajanan had nicknamed the group, to set forth and explore the place. Our first major stop was the Mahabodhi Temple Complex in Gaya, famous for being the place where Gautama Buddha is said to have obtained enlightenment. For Buddhists, Bodh Gaya is the most important of the main four pilgrimage sites related to the life of Gautama Buddha, the other three being Kushinagar, Lumbini and Sarnath. In 2002, Mahabodhi Temple became a UNESCO World Heritage Site and though the complex is well-maintained, the surrounding town, by contrast, is dusty and obviously ill-planned. It is believed that a new development plan has been proposed to ensure a sustainable and prosperous future for Bodh Gaya, but has become controversial because such a plan may require the relocation of whole neighborhoods.

Next to the temple, to its western side, is the holy Bodhi tree. In the Pali Canon, the site is called Bodhimanda and the monastery there the Bodhimanda Vihara. The tallest tower is 55 metres in height. In approximately 250 BCE, about 200 years after the Buddha attained enlightenment, Buddhist Emperor Asoka visited Bodh Gaya with the intention of establishing a monastery and shrine. As part of the temple, he built the diamond throne, called the Vajrasana, attempting to mark the exact spot of Buddha’s enlightenment. Asoka is therefore considered the founder of the Mahabodhi Temple. One of the interesting features of the sprawling complex is the Mucalinda Lake in the centre of which is a sculpture of Buddha seated under the hood of a cobra. It is said that when Buddha was spending his sixth week of enlightenment here, the cobra and other creatures protected him from severe thunderstorms.

Incidentally, there have been several controversies regarding the temple involving both the management and claims made by Hindus and Buddhists regarding ownership or rights of access to the temple. In August 2005, individuals associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were stopped by police while attempting to enter the Mahabodhi Temple to make an offering of blessed water to a pedestal or broken pillar within the temple complex. BJP officials claimed that a pedestal within the temple may be part of a Shiva linga, and that Hindus should be permitted access to the temple to make offerings to the pedestal. In 2006, it was alleged that a branch of the Bodhi tree had been removed and sold to wealthy buyers in Thailand with the cooperation of senior members of the temple’s management committee. Former temple secretary, Kalicharan Yadav, has denied this claim, contending that the branch was removed much earlier as part of a needed pruning effort recommended by botanists working with the temple.

Making our way ahead in a Winger van with a variety of snacks such as bhakarwadis, anjir, khakhras, Shrewsberry biscuits etc pumping up our energy levels, our next halt was at Rajgir, which is said to be the first capital of the kingdom of Magadha, a state that would eventually evolve into the Mauryan Empire. Its date of origin is unknown, although ceramics dating to about 1,000 BC have been found in the city. This area was one of the favourite places for Gautama Buddha and the well known ‘Atanatiya’ conference was held atop the mountain called Vulture’s Peak. Known for the Vishwa Shanti Stupa, located at considerable height, one of the ‘adventurous’ aspects of the place is that you can take a ride in a cable car on a ropeway to ascend and descend. Rajgir is also famous for its hot water springs, locally known as Brahmakund, a sacred place for Hindus. The Vishwa Shanti Stupa, built in 1969, is one of the 80 peace pagodas in the world built to spread the message of peace and non-violence.

With a lunch of samosas, kachoris and noodles that smelt and tasted stale in one of the ‘dhaba’ type eating joints, we made our way to the ruins of the Nalanda University. This was an ancient center of higher learning in Bihar and flourished between the reign of Sakraditya (whose identity is uncertain and who might have been either Kumara Gupta I or Kumara Gupta II) and 1197 CE, supported by patronage from the Hindu Gupta rulers as well as Buddhist emperors. An official guide with good command over Hindi explained to us that the complex was built with red bricks and its ruins occupy an area of 14 hectares. At its peak, the university attracted scholars and students from as far away as Tibet, China, Greece and Persia and its architectural uniqueness lay in the way the spaces for learning, residence and meditation were clearly demarcated.

The university was ransacked and destroyed by an army under Bakhtiyar Khilji in 1193. The great library of Nalanda University was so vast that it is reported to have burned for six months after the invaders set fire to it. The destruction of the temples, monasteries, centers of learning at Nalanda were responsible for the demise of ancient Indian scientific thought in mathematics, astronomy, alchemy and anatomy. In its heyday, it accommodated over 10,000 students and 2,000 teachers. It was marked by a lofty wall and one gate with eight separate compounds and ten temples. On the grounds were lakes and parks. The library was located in a nine-storied building where meticulous copies of texts were produced. What really helped the excavators understand the functional layout of the place were the diaries of Chinese pilgrim Xuan Zang who left detailed accounts of the university in the 7th century.

Opposite the ruins is a museum that houses the various items of historical interest unearthed during the excavations and a little way ahead is the Xuan Zang Memorial Hall which has a beautiful tapestry covering two walls that provide an account of the traveller’s sojourn across India and other countries. Xuan Zang primarily became famous for his 17-year overland journey to India, which is recorded in detail in the classic Chinese text ‘Great Tang Records On The Western Regions’. The place is immaculately maintained though of course the same cannot be said for any of the towns in Bihar where, for one thing, there is no traffic discipline and you are likely to be either mowed down by a truck or be rendered deaf with the drivers’ habit of sounding their horns at a high pitch and for long periods of time.

With Gajanan, a colonel in the Indian Army, a stay at one of the army’s guesthouses seems to have become the highpoint of our trips, and so was the case here when he led us to the Ordnance Factory’s amazing quarters where we were all treated to a sumptuous dinner and a most comfortable overnight stay in the huge rooms. With easy banter flowing like a Ganga in full spate, the hours sped on quickly till it was now time to make a quick last visit before we returned to Patna for our return flights home. This was at Pawapuri, a holy site for Jains located about 101 kilometers from Patna. It is here that Mahavira attained nirvana or moksha in around 5^th century BCE. Mahavira, as the temple priest informed us, was the last of the 24 tirthankaras of the Jain faith and it was here that he was cremated. There was a great rush to collect his ashes, with the result that so much soil was removed from the place of his cremation that a pond was created. Now, an exquisite marble temple in the middle of a lotus pond, the Jal Mandir, stands magnificently on a rectangular island.

And so, finally, it was time to head back to Patna from where Harsha was to fly to Kolkata and proceed to Singapore while Ganesh was to make the Patna-Delhi-Ahmedabad trip to be able to drive onwards to Vadodara. Gajanan accompanied Harsha in Patna on another search for sarees while the rest of us satiated our hunger pants with vegetarian thalis just outside the airport and then flew to Pune but not before freezing the location for next year. It’s going to be Karnataka. And to end the tale on a lighter note, when Santa met Banta after a long time, he kept saying, “A-B, A-B, A-B….” When an exasperated Banta asked him the reason for this silly repetition, Santa replied: “No C for long time!” But that’s not going to happen to us. We are getting together again…..soon!

Text: Huned Contractor

Stepping It Up

Amitabh Bachchan apparently had to take a tour of the Gir Lion Sanctuary four times to finally spot a lion or two. This is what the guide sitting in the front seat of our Maruti Gypsy told us on the chilly winter morning of December 10, 2011 as the vehicle moved ahead on a bumpy track through the forest. We weren’t the brand ambassadors of Gujarat nor did we have the ‘Bachhanesque’ luxury of taking the safari again. And so all we could do was to keep peering into the rather dry landscape of the reserve for any sign of a lion and hope for the best. Guess it wasn’t exactly our lucky day since even after more than two hours we were not really any close to getting within a visually close range of the king of the jungle.

But this is like starting a tale with its tail end and doing it on a negative note. So, let’s go back to the beginning. It was time for our annual ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’ kind of pilgrimage and after almost three months of parrying and chain emails shot back and forth between the group members (Gajanan Radkar, Vipul Shah, Ganesh Shinde, S Vaidyanathan, Dileep Bhandari, Rajesh Bayas, Harsha Rao and me), we were finally ready to set off on the evening of December 7 from Pune in a 3 Tier AC compartment of the Ahimsa Express that would take us to Vadodara. Harsha was to fly in from Singapore and Rajesh was to pick him up from the airport and board the train at Vasai Road. Sounds so smooth, doesn’t it?

The train took off at its stipulated hour. But there was this uneasy feeling about whether Harsha’s flight would be on time and whether they would make it to the station. They did but not before Vipul’s blood pressure shot up due to the many calls between him and Rajesh about whether the duo were going to board the right train. At one point, Rajesh said that they were already on a train even though the Ahimsa Express was yet to reach Vasai Road. Anyway, this was after the six of us had a feast of chapati, potata bhaji, shrikhand, puri, lemon rice, curd rice and pickles. The ladies who took the extra effort of ensuring that we did not go hungry deserve a salute.

Early morning the next day we were in Vadodara and with the Winger having already been booked to take us on our trip through the following three days, we started off on a quest of finding a couple of hotel rooms to have a bath and a quick breakfast. No luck! Thanks to Vipul, we finally found rooms in a Jain dharamshala and after the preliminaries struck the highway to take us to Palitana. But not before meeting up with some of Heema’s cousins who treated us to a great lunch of bhendi masala, dhokli curry, rotis and butter milk at a plush resort. When we finally arrived at the guest house in Palitana, there wasn’t much time to take a break and shed off the fatigue caused by sitting in a mini bus for too long.

The legs needed to be stretched and in a different way. We started climbing our way to the Palitana temple at around 3.40 pm and returned to the base by 6.45, which wasn’t too bad considering that there are about 3,800 steps each way. The Palitana temples are considered the most sacred pilgrimage place (tirtha) by the Jain community, and it is the world’s largest temple complex. There are more than 3,000 temples located on the Shatrunjaya hills, exquisitely carved in marble. The main temple on top of the hill is dedicated to the first tirthankar lord Adinath (Rishabdeva). On the top is a cluster of Jain temples, built by generations of Jains over a period of 900 years, from the 11th century onwards. The temples are managed by the Anandji Kalyanji Trust of the Kasturbai Lalbhai group.

These shrines are exquisitely carved in marble, veritable prayers in stone. To an observer, these appear to be ivory miniatures when seen from a distance. Created by master craftsmen, the main temple has ornate architectural motifs, though in its overall plan it is simpler than the Choumukh. The other notable temples are those of Kumarpal, Vimalshah and Sampriti Raja. Kumarpal Solanki, a great Jain patron, probably built the earliest temple. The temple has a fabulous collection of jewels, and these can be seen with special permission. The temples date from 11th to the 20th century.

With our legs becoming stiffer than dead logs of wood, we went out for an early dinner at the Sankalp Restaurant after downing some sugarcane and lime juice helped along by Jain bhel available at the shops at the base of the Palitana temple complex. “So where do we head the next year?” was the question bandied around as we waited for our meal. Pondicherry, Pasupatinath Bhubaneshwar, Goa, Dharmashala…the options started popping out faster than loose caps from a fizzy drink bottle. Nothing was finalised. The good food saw to that! It was then back to the guest house for an early ‘tuck in’ with the satisfaction of having accomplished the first part of our mission so successfully. 

With some of us walking as if we were on stilts thanks to our leg muscles refusing to let go of their stiffness, it was time to hit the road the next morning to reach Somnath. This we did by noon. The holy place of the Aadi Jyotirling, Shree Somnath Mahadev, and the sacred soil from where Bhagvan Shri Krishna took his last journey to his neejdham, the temple stands at the shore of the Arabian Ocean. This pilgrimage is one of the oldest and finds its reference in ancient texts like Skandpuran, Shreemad Bhagavat, Shivpuran, etc. The Moon God is said to have been relieved from the curse of his father-in-law Daksha Prajapati by the blessings of Bhagvan Somnath. In the Shiva Purana and Nandi Upapurana, Shiva said, “I am always present everywhere but specially in 12 forms and places as the jyotirlingas”. Somnath is the first among the 12 holy Shiva jyotirlings.

The shore temple of Somnath is believed to have been built in four phases in gold by Lord Soma, in silver by Ravi, in wood by Krishna and in stone by King Bhimadeva. It has withstood six repeated desecrations by Muslim invaders, though some say that it was pulled to the ground 11 times. The seventh existing temple is built in the Kailas Mahameru Prasad style. The ‘iron man’ of India, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, is the pioneer of the existing temple. The kalash at the top of the shikhar weighs ten tonnes and the dhwajdand is 27 feet tall and 1 foot in circumference. The Abadhit Samudra Marg or the arrow indicates an unobstructed sea route to the South Pole. The nearest land towards the South Pole is about 9,936 kms away. The temple renovated by Maharani Ahalyabai is adjacent to the main temple complex.

With Vaidayanthan doing the puja and surprising the temple’s resident priests with his flawless rendition of the prayers, it was now time to close our spiritual quest and move on to the entertaining part of our trip. With the taste of the dal-tadka and the mixed vegetables still on our tongues, we got back into the Winger to reach Sasan Gir at the earliest. And it was good that we hurried since it helped us to catch the mini safari outside the actual reserve area where we could see two lions and a lioness in full regalia along with deer and a variety of birds. The government’s guest house at Gir is in the colonial style and there rooms are wonderfully spacious and comfortable. It was time to party and this we did with the conversation veering into the territory of how it’s so difficult a task for parents to keep track of their children’s activities, especially those of girls passing through a phase of adolescence.

We of course wanted to stretch the discussion but the dinner wasn’t going to wait for us and at the early hour of 9 pm we trooped into the dining hall to bring the day to a close. We were going to return to Vadodara the next day but not before taking the early morning safari into the protected lion reserve. The air had a cold bite to it and the Gypsy jeeps weren’t exactly in the line of luxury. And so began the two-hour drive during which we, as said earlier, spotted many deer but no lions. Ganesh had not joined us since he was down with a bad throat. Was that the reason for the lions to stay away? Ganesh thought so! But shedding off this disappointment, we gorged on a quick breakfast of poha and butter-jam sandwiches to begin our long drive of almost ten hours to reach Vadodara in time for the 9.53 pm Jaipur Pune Express back to Pune.

The train was delayed by half an hour, there was a bit of commotion because two of our berths had been occupied by ladies who did not want to give up their unofficial moorings and the exhaustion was beginning to tell on us. However, it was a comfortable journey back home. To add a bit, there can be no trip without Gajanan’s Santa Banta jokes and it’s amazing how he manages to come up with a fresh lot each year. Vipul and Vaidya had of course handled all the bookings with such perfection that there was no room for complaints. Rajesh learned an important lesson on this trip – that it is not good to re-bottle champagne. Dileep, as is his habit, remains quiet most of the time but can be counted on to pitch in with a devastating spin attack when he thinks the moment deserves it. Harsha, we all agreed, would have had a great career in the CBI with his fondness for questioning just about everything. As for Ganesh, well, he was looking at Vadodara with more than just passing curiosity since he had to be back in the city after a few days due to his new job with L&T.

So, as my wife asked me, what was the trip all about? That’s hard to define in totality but it certainly was about camaraderie, long-lasting friendship, a physical test of our stamina, the fulfilling of curiosity about new places, a chance to get away from the daily grind, learning a bit more about life and ensuring that the passage of the following 11 months would once again bring the next trip closer. It was also about remembering our days at school. Of a teacher who said ‘phinite’ for ‘finite’, of a classmate whom we all are anxious to track, of some lady teachers who kindled our early stirrings of lust, of competing for the first and second ranks, and so on. And at the end of it we remembered that Harsha had a pet name – ‘Peru’.

Huned Contractor

PS: Though this will not be taken as the truth, I certainly did not rig the quiz session in favour of Harsha. There’s no ‘commission’ to prove that!

THE DEVI'S CALL

It is still two hours to midnight. And it is pitch black. What you can see in the distance is the silhouette of a mountain, lit by a shadowed moon and the stars that have come out in full force. Ahead of you is a path, one that has to be judged since it cannot be seen. The best thing to do while moving forward is to put one foot ahead of another and keep your eyes on the person in front of you. This goes on for at least a kilometre. And even as you grapple with this rather ‘blind’ situation, the shouts of “side, side” unnerve you. These are the warnings yelled out by the palkhi-bearers who are carrying the pilgrims right up to the top. And then there are the horses too, their droppings making the road slippery. Not to forget that a thunderous shower has already done so. For a moment then you want to turn back and rush to the safety of your lodgings at the base of the hill. But you cannot. Faith, as they say, can move mountains.

This, and many more such experiences, is what gets weaved into the journey to Jammu and then to the temple of Vaishno Devi, located at a height of 5,577 feet. Climbing up in the darkness of the night (which is what most pilgrims do to avoid the heat of the day) is not for the faint-hearted, literally and metaphorically. It is a steep climb that often squeezes out every breath from your lung and very few can actually trek up for four hours at a stretch. Breaks after every few metres become essential. And incidentally, that’s true even when you are coming down. That’s because the gradient can be so steep at times that the pressure on your knees can be killing. All said and done, however, the fact that you are able to reach the temple and get those micro-seconds of ‘darshan’ is enough to make you forget about the breathlessness and the severe cramps in your feet.

I happened to go to Vaishno Devi in September purely by chance though it is believed that this opportunity comes only when the Mata calls you to her fold. A close friend right from early days in school, Gajanan Radkar, is now a colonel in the army and had been posted at Jammu. During every visit to Pune he would insist that we (which includes my other school chums Vipul Shah, Ganesh Shinde and Rajesh Bayas as also two other friends, S Vaidynathan and Dilip Bhandari) should visit him at Jammu and make the trek to Vaishno Devi. We would never find the time to do so, till everything suddenly slipped into place this time. Was that the Mata’s call? Perhaps. With just three days to spare, we decided to take an early morning flight to Jammu from Mumbai in September 2009 so that we would have almost the entire day before starting the trek at 5 pm.

With the advantage of having obtained an army pass (this allows you to bypass the long queue for entry to the temple complex), we set off for Katra which is the point from where you begin to climb upwards. A word about Jammu though. Known as the winter capital of J&K and the city of temples, Jammu is now more of an army base and it is a common sight to see long convoys of army trucks making their way to Kashmir. It also has the appearance of forlornness brought on no doubt due to the fact that not much development has taken place over the years. For those who wish to explore Jammu, there is the Nandini Wildlife Sanctuary best known for its wonderful species of pheasants, the Mansar Lake situated 62 kms away which is fringed by forest-covered hills, the Bahu Fort that is on a rock face on the left bank of the river Tawi, the Raghunath Mandir which was built in 1857 by Maharaja Gulab Singh, the founder of J&K and the Peer Kho Cave Temple with its legend of the Ramayan Bear God Jamvant having meditated here.

But, back to Vaishno Devi. Having reached Katra at around 6 pm, we immediately started on our way up, shuffling along with the devout pilgrims chanting “Jai Mata Di” and peering into the many shops that line both sides of the path. The vendors here sell a wide variety of goods – from T-Series’ audio CDs of religious songs (the company’s founder Gulshan Kumar was a firm bhakt of Vaishno Devi) to dry fruits and from flower garlands and rudraksh malas to plastic toys and make-shift restaurants offering rajma chawal and kadhi khichdi. But the ones that fascinated me the most were the photo studios. Each of these has a replica of the Devi’s cave with its three ‘pinds’ and you can click your photograph in a way that suggests that it was actually done in the temple at the top. This is convenient because you cannot do so in the actual temple where you are not even allowed enough time to say a prayer or two.

For those who are in the habit of trekking, Vaishno Devi should not pose a problem. For us, it turned out to be a mammoth task even as we heaved, puffed and panted our way to completing the four-hour journey. The mountains that lined the horizon stood like sentinels while the air vibrated with the chants of the pilgrims. After a kilometre or two the shops disappeared and what kept us going was the sight of the lights right at the top. To cut a long climb short, the temple complex, when you finally reach it, offers a dazzling array of bright lights and a serpentine queue to get the darshan. For us, because of our privilege status, the darshan was a quick affair and we were outside once again within the span of an hour. And then, of course, begins the weary way down.

The Vaishno Devi yatra is probably the most hallowed pilgrimage of northern India and attracts over 5 million devotees a year. The trek from Katra is of 13.5 kms, although it certainly appears to be longer than that if one were to measure it on a scale of effort. The best time to visit is between March and July. The abode of this goddess is in the mountains of Trikuta Hills and she resides in a beautiful cave in the form of three ‘pinds’ in the name of Maha Kali, Maha Laxmi and Maha Sarawati. According to mythological tales, Goddess Durga killed the demon Bhairon here. The cave is 30 metres in length and 1.5 metres in height.

It is believed that a Brahmin priest called Sridhar discovered the holy shrine of Vaishno Devi about 1,000 years ago. The other shrines at Vaishno Devi are the Bhumika Temple, Ban Ganga Temple, Charan Paduka Temple, Ardh Kuwari, the Sri Ram Temple and the Bhairav Temple. These are located at different heights and distances from Katra along the way to Bhawan, that being the main temple of Vaishno Devi. For those who may not want to climb as also not use the horse or palkhi service to reach the top, there is a helicopter service with regular flights from the airport at Sanjhi Chat in Jammu.

According to Hindu epics, Mata Vaishno Devi took birth in the South of India in the home of Ratnakar Sagar. Her worldly parents had remained childless for a long time. Ratnakar had promised, the night before the birth of the divine child, which he would not come in the way of whatever his child desired. Vaishno Devi was called Trikuta as a child. Later she was called Vaishnavi because of her taking birth from Lord Vishnu’s lineage. When Trikuta was nine years old, she sought her father’s permission for doing penance on the seashore. Trikuta prayed to Lord Vishnu in the form of Rama. During Shree Rama’s search for Sita, he reached the seashore along with his army.

His eyes fell on this divine girl in deep meditation. Trikuta told Shree Rama that she had accepted him as her husband. Shree Rama told her that during this incarnation he had vowed to be faithful to only Sita. However, the Lord assured her that in Kaliyuga he would manifest as Kalki and marry her. Shree Rama then asked Trikuta to meditate in the cave found in the Trikuta Range of Manik Mountains, situated in Northern India. Vaishno Devi decided to observe the ‘navratra’ for the victory of Shree Rama against Ravana. Hence one reads the Ramayana during the nine days of Navratra in remembrance of the above connection. Shree Rama promised that the whole world would sing her praise and Trikuta was to become famous as Vaishno Devi and thus become immortal forever.

Anyway, we began our descent at around midnight and reached the base at 4.30 am, our legs having turned to wooden pegs that would no longer bend or move. It was then that we spotted a maalishwallah who did a wonderful job of getting the blood back into circulation and relaxing the muscles. Sitting there on an embankment we looked up and wondered if we had really been up there and done the yatra. We had. There was the prasad and the chunri to serve as evidence. We could see the lights high up there, serving as beacons of hope to all those who come here to get their wishes fulfilled. “Wasn’t it worth it?” Col Radkar asked. We nodded, too taken aback by our own achievement to put anything into words.

Huned Contractor

TIRUPATI: A FEELING OF ONENESS

Atheists discard the theory of there being a god (or many gods). To them I would like to pose a question: What is it that makes your ego and all your materialistic concerns just crumble into nothingness when you come face to face with a deity, and in just maybe about 15 seconds you divest everything else from your mind and psychologically and physically bow down to seek attention from the one whom you can finally trust to resolve all your worries about the present and the future? I experienced that moment of divinity when I was finally jostled into position right in front of the statue of Lord Venkateshwara at Tirumala.

For those few seconds I did not register the weight of the huge crowd threatening to squash me against the wall and the railings. Nor did my ears absorb the strong collective murmur of the crowd. I felt supreme silence and salvation. And a sense of connection with the One who can spin things your way. I am sure that my friends Vipul Shah, Gajanan Radkar, Ganesh Shinde, Harsha Rao, Rajesh Bayas, Dilip Bhandari and S Vaidyanathan felt the same. The eight of us were in Tirumala on Saturday, December 18, 2010. The weather outside had a slight chill to it but inside the temple complex, crawling a few centimetres at a time to reach the sanctum sanctorum, we felt warm. And amazed.

Having somehow managed to gain entry into the middle of the serpentine queue, we bobbed along with the thousands of other devotees at around 11 pm. We joked and laughed, smiled at those around us, and at times responded to the chant of “Govinda, Govinda”. It was going to be a slow night. We knew that. But then we were in no hurry. Seven of us had come to Tirumala from Pune and Harsha had flown in from Singapore with the sole purpose of gaining the ‘darshan’ of Lord Venkateshwara.

Rajesh works with the banking sector in Mumbai and Gajanan is an army officer posted at Ahmednagar. Vipul, Dilip and Vaidyanathan run their own companies, Ganesh works in the telecom domain, Harsha is into financial and business management, and I head an industry newspaper. A good potent mix of experiences and domain knowledge, you could say.

Except for Vaidyanathan and Dilip, the rest of come from the same school and our bond of friendship goes back to the seventies when we were grapping with our algebra, geometry, geography, physics, biology and PT drills, among other adolescence-related queries and quests. This was our second ‘spiritual’ trip. The first one had been to Vaishnodevi in 2009. Tirumala had probably been suggested by Vaidyanathan. I am not sure but that does not matter. What does matter is that Vaidyanathan had taken upon himself the entire package of communicating with the group members, obtaining everyone’s confirmation for the journey, booking the tickets and accommodation well in advance, and ensuring that each one of us was ready to depart at the rather ungodly hour of 4 am on Saturday to catch the 5.55 am Indigo flight from Pune to Chennai.

We arrived at Chennai at around 8 am and Harsha, who had arrived from Singapore the day before, was already at the airport with a hired Tempo Traveller to take us directly to Tirupati. Believe me, it was one of the fastest journeys covering approximately 150 kms not because the driver Vimal was one of India’s road maniacs but for the fact that there was so much to talk about. And of course pull each other’s legs. “So why did you get into an industry publication? And what do you know about technology?” Harsha asked me.

After I had explained how it had been an extensive learning programme of almost a year for me to get a hang of the engineering that goes into the production of steel wire rods, cables, and fasteners, Harsha shot up his eyebrows and said: “You sure seem to be motivated.” It was good hearing that. Especially when you are at an age when the career graph begins to get into a phase of hibernation or stagnation.

The rooms at Hotel Maurya in Tirupati were good. But better still was the South Indian Thali we had at the restaurant attached to it. Lemon rice, chapatis, different types of vegetables, rasam, curd, pickles, papad…it was a perfect vegetarian meal. I am sure that Vipul must have been the happiest of the lot after tucking into this spread. It was time then to take off the shoes and indulge in a little nap. As also catch up on what the Indian cricket team was up to in South Africa. When we got ready to leave at 5 pm, the mood certainly was exuberant. It had been planned that while everyone else would climb their way to Tirumala, I would take the mini-bus right to the top. That’s because my knee was in no condition to take the strain of the steep steps.

So far, so fine. Then began the worries. Those who climb to Tirumala are given a free entry pass to the temple. I, however, could not get one because the counter for the Rs 300 ticket was closed and I just couldn’t manage to get the pass for free ‘darshan’. After several updates through our cell phones, I finally said to Vaidyanathan, “Look, you go to the temple. I don’t think I will be able to get the ‘darshan’. And so I will just wait here with the bus.” Now this is where you get to experience what good friendship is all about. Vaidyanathan and the rest of the gang weren’t going to let this be a status-quo position. After they had all trudged their way to the top, Vaidyanathan got into his ‘networking’ mode and quickly enough found one of the temple complex employees to not only get me a pass but also find a way for us to break into the queue.

Then, as said before, we shuffled, pushed, propelled, jerked, heaved and made some slow but ballistic progress toward the temple. Let’s have some facts here for those who haven’t been to Tirumala. The temple at Tirumala is one of the most revered Hindu temples of Lord Vishnu in the form of Lord Venkateswara located in the hill town of Tirumala near Tirupati in the Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh. It is located 580 kms south of the state capital Hyderabad and 157 kms north-west of Chennai. The temple is situated on Venkatadri, one of the seven hills of Tirumala, and hence is also known as the Temple of Seven Hills. The presiding deity of the temple, Lord Venkateswara, is also known by other names such as Balaji, Govinda and Srinivasa.

The temple is reportedly the richest and the most visited place of worship in the world with up to 1,00,000 pilgrims arriving for ‘darshan’ daily. According to a legend, the temple’s deity is believed to have resided there for the entire Kali Yuga. In Sri Vaishnava tradition, the temple is considered one of the 108 Divya Desams. The huge complex comprises a smaller traditional temple building along with a number of modern queue and pilgrim lodging sites. For worshippers, the deity Venkateswara symbolises goodness. At just about midnight we finally found ourselves in the sanctum sanctorum. With the ‘darshan’ over in a jiffy, we made our way out but not without more of the pull and push affair.

We were back at the hotel at about 4 am after having lost one hour because and I and Vipul had got separated from the rest and had no clue about where the bus was. There was no way to communicate since our cell phones were in the bus. Finally, after clambering over a gate, we found the bus and fell into a state of semi-slumber, exhausted but rather thrilled at having done it. The next day, what with the return flight to Pune being at 9.30 pm, we took things easy and leisurely drove back to Chennai where we parked the bus by a beach and met up with Mohan, a friend of Vaidyanathan, Dilip and Gajanan. A plate of chilli pakodas and ice-cream with the waves crashing on the sand during the late evening hour replenished our energy levels and then it was time to get back to the airport where Harsha had a flight two hours later than ours to Singapore.

For anyone who might read this, it would appear that this was just an ordinary two-day trip to a religious place. So what made it extraordinary? Many things. But the biggest thing was the bonding we shared. Ours has always been a strong ‘root’ connection that can be traced back to our school days with Dilip and Vaidyanathan becoming such an integral part of it. But the fact that there is so much to exchange, share, and let our hair down over a short period is what adds extra adrenaline to this affinity and affiliation.

Then there were other things. We found, for example, that Harsha had quite a fetish about his bag – packing and unpacking frequently to place things properly and ensure that his footwear was as far away from the prasadam so as to avoid any ‘spiritual contamination’. Gajanan turned out to be a riot too with his ‘Santa Banta’ jokes that sometimes brought the house down and at times scraped the bottom of the barrel of amusement. Gajanan, we all owe you a party for keeping us in splits throughout our return drive.

Dilip is the quiet one but then once in a while he comes up with a repartee that can knock everyone down. Vipul is the focused one. We all agreed that he would have made a great career in the army. Ganesh and Vaidyanathan are the ‘practical’ guys who think out a way for everything through the use of logic. Rajesh is the dreamy one. He will look at you, smile and mumble, “Yaar, enough of idlis and dosas. Let’s have some fish for dinner.” So, closing the narrative, here are a couple of nuggets from Gajanan’s repository. Question: “Which is the toughest sport to watch?” Answer: Women's Beach Volleyball. Why? You figure it out. Okay, why does Banta place a full and an empty glass of water next to his bedside before he goes to sleep? Answer: He may or may not want to drink water during the night.

Now, here’s the best part of the trip. We have already chosen a place for our next year’s visit. It’s going to be Palitana, a religious Jain city in the Bhavnagar district of Gujarat. The ball is now in Vaidyanathan’s court to get things organised.

Huned Contractor