Things got moving and once again I was back on my 'Thai' plans. As per my planning I was expected to get maa's and mine passport 15 days prior to 'the day', the consultant goofed up and thus my 'Thai' plans were screwed. While I was looking out for some local escape routes, BalaM announced his visit with no date of return. I was stuck with no options but to wait patiently for his departure. Finally after a week his departure was finalized, three days before 'the day'. While booking his ticket I just tried my luck with TTD tour for maa, poopoo and me. This time I could book tickets for both ways, wait listed though! I booked us for a 3 days trip to TTD and kinda kept it a surprise for maa since I wanted to avoid the whole 'our kinda' discussion. I had kept a day's breathing space for us post BalaM's departure before our tour.
BalaM's departure was delayed because his ticket was wait listed till the last moment and thus his departure plans got hazy. We couldn't leave till he was around and thus I had to break my silence on the whole 'surprise' thing. Thankfully there weren't many discussions around the whole deal and BalaM left the next evening, leaving no time to catch our breath. Our tickets were still wait listed and none of us wished to travel without reservation. When I came back after dropping him to the station, maa raised the whole itinerary thing and what if things aren't favorable doubts of hers. I had no certain answers to any of her queries but one, ''have left it to Lord Venkateshwara, if he has called for us then he shall take care of our trip. Let us take our reservation status as his signal, if they don't get confirmed then he doesn't wish to see us and our etickets will get canceled automatically!" Next minute I logged on to check our PNR status and to our surprise our tickets were confirmed.
Our train was scheduled for 3:30 pm and thus after our BAU(Bickering As Usual) we left home at 2:30 pm. I don't remember a single incident of train delays in my life so far so none of us bothered to inquire with IR before leaving from home. As soon as we reached the station, we learnt that the train was delayed by two hours. There was no point going home and coming back since it would have taken us one hour to commute in total and about 200/-. I had not slept on the previous night so I decided to take a nap on one of the benches on the platform.
I woke up in like 5 hours only to see tired and long faces of maa and poopoo. Poor guys had survived for 5 hours on that platform, while I rested. So, apparently the train was delayed by 6 hours and my comrades were almost about to give up. I suggested a quick dinner at Comesum, we had packed lotsa stuff from home and we bought malai Kulfi from the vendor out of courtesy. The jolly dinner boosted zeal in maa and poopoo, they were good to continue waiting at least for next couple of hours. By the time we finished our meal and dessert, we heard arrival announcement for our train. After a lot of confusion and crazy running around we managed to board our train.
The compartment was full of men it did not appear worrisome and honestly we did not face any struggles during our 18 hours of journey. Poopoo and I had literally invaded the window seats. We reached Tirupati station at about 4 pm, whereas we were supposed to reach at 10 am. As soon as we got down, I started inquiring at random places for 'hows' and 'whats' of the destination. Post my terrible bargaining shots we reached TTD Srinivasam by 4.30. After sitting in a non moving que for little over 45 minutes I started panicking out since I was responsible for two other lives who kinda were helpless due to their lack of knowledge of English. I somehow 'pattaoed' the guard and bargained his commission charges from 500/- to 100/-. As soon as I was about to pay him money for special arrangements for one AC room, the que started moving and I got lucky with one nice AC room without any commission. :p
After some rest and bathing we were ready to head out, since it was 'the day' maa insisted on a fancy place for dinner. In stead I took them to the roadside 'dosa on thelas' place and ordered for three masala dosas. By the time I got couple of water bottles (less than 5 minutes) maa and poopoo were holding their respective dosas. I signaled them to eat, to both their surprises, it was indeed one of the best dosas both of them had eaten. I kinda louved the twinkle in poopoo's eyes. After finishing our firsts Poopoo and I shared another dosa. Maa and I sipped some steaming sips of some amazing tea. Finally around 7.30 pm we boarded a bus to Tirumala since we were very keen on making 'the day' some extra very 'special'. The bus was kinda funny, since apart from three of us there was only an elderly couple in the whole bus, it had a lady conductor and the driver would stop at various eateries and the conductor would pick up food and together they would eat in the bus.
I was nauseated on my way up since it was a ghat road and my dosa was also rising up, the last thing I wanted to do was to throw up, so I kept my eyes closed throughout the journey. When we reached up many people including the security guards started misguiding us, most but a few insisted on purchase of special 300/- special darshan tickets. There were few true and godsend folks who guided us to a que for free darshanam. After walking for a little over an hour from the bus station we reached a hallway. Devotees had laid down groundsheets and were getting comfortable to sleep/rest. Initially it was a bizarre position, nobody understood us and we had no plans of spending the night in a communal hallway when we had paid a grand for our room in Tirupati. Maa was kinda losing her patience so she engaged poopoo to run some errands and bought some munchings from a vendor. It was the vendor, who explained me the whole thing, apparently it was going to take us a little over 2 hours of waiting in that hallway and then an hours time in the que for the darshanam, on our way to dashanam we could buy prasadam laddoos by paying 20/- for 2 laddoos per head. Much relieved with the information all three of us dozed off within minutes.
At around 11.15 pm on 'the day' I woke up to a divine Conch sound and woke maa and poopoo too. Since we were amongst some of the early risers we could skip and run a huge distance and finally at around 11.59 pm I was in front of Lord Venkateshwara's idol for little over 90 seconds. I literally concluded 'the day' in front of the deity and I couldn't think of a better way of making it one of the most memorable expeiences of my lifetime. The journey that followed this whole experience was equally miraculous/coincidental and interesting. We met a godsend angel who took us for the all temple darshanam tour organised by the devasthanam, followed by the ISKON temple darshanam and miraculous confimation of the return journey tickets.
I feel special, at times elite, smarter than many others but this time I felt blessed. The whole tour thickned my belief of existence of a stronger governing force. This definitely doesn't make me quit my chores and sit in front of an idol for hours or give up on every other ting that I enjoy and is considered as 'ill or evil' by my religion.
My take out, ''Be true to thine own self!''
P.S. Yes it did rain on 'the day'! :)
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