24 hours of spiritual fantasy

This time its not trekking but unexpectedly yet another adventure trip…. You cant always unplan all the trips and expect it to be enjoyable… The (un) royal pilgrimage started on last Thursday night… we were anticipating a lengthy period of outing as the next 3 days were holidays and the place TIRUPTHY is famous for its overflowing crowd on holidays….

We booked a quails and it has to be white board as we got to cross the border… (yellow board vehicles should pay 3000 rs. Tax on the state border---enna koduma sir ithu) apparently this will be an expensive transport for us even though we hired a white board cab…. It took around 7 hours to reach as its night time, raining and the roads are narrowly narrow… we reached the foot of the hill around 1 am… realized that the 50 rs. Payment ticket counter will open only at 5 am in the mrng… the irritating scene was that there were 200-300 ppl already formed the queue … we had no patience to wait… as few of us had contacts with the authorities in the temple, we had a confidence that we can get through some how… so we started to walk to the top….





The walk was yet another for me as I visited the place several times by walk… my friends had a mixed feelings of excitement, devotion, agony, pain etc…. We reached the top like 9 am… (hehehe we slept for 2 hours in the pavement in the middle of our walk) then one of my mate’s cousin working in the temple pushed us inside the free darshan queue around 12 afternoon… we were put in the cage for around 9 hours (yaaa lions should be caged, innit?) that was our time to get good long sleep… but the pain was heavy as the wait frusturated us more… the whole mountain is full packed with pilgrims from all over India (mainly from south)… I don’t remebr wen I last went on a free darshan queue and this time I properly seen the other side of India… the gang was mostly lower middle class and lower class people and few had no idea about paid ticket and ended up in the free queue….

I can very well listen to those typical quarrels happening here and there…. But am in no mood to enjoy those as I was desperate to finish up the darshan and leave the place same night…. The cages are opened at 9.30 pm … and the people cant wait to get themselves ahead…. All started running mad…. Hahaha.. few peoply were swearing at others like ‘Why the hell these people are mad and running like soldiers for war’ but the funniest part is they were one among those front runners…. Ofcourse, human irony… one cant complain…. Every one has this…

The queue was moving at snail’s pace and we finally managed to finish around 1 am … then a bit of food …then on our way back to Bangalore…. I will list out the key points to be noted/learn in this trip…

- The whole trip turned out to be totally hectic with our lack of planning and this wasn’t exciting or funny like our usual trekking… this is supposed to be more a spiritual trip and we should have our comfort with proper planning….

- The travels guys were cheeky in their tariffs… we paid bloody 1000 bucks on top of our estimation with their stupid rules that wasn’t fair at all…. We cant argue much and we paid the amount he asked for.

- It was raining on most of the way we walked… although we enjoy the rain, I haven’t this time as it was not a fun tour or I wasn’t in that mood to enjoy other stuffs apart from the darshan… but my advice would be to carry a rain gear all the time when you have to walk…

- The food was lavishing and awesome like always with andra food….. I just loved the 6-7 idlis, 1 dosa and a lemon soda that I had in the middle of our mountaineering ;)

- Good opportunity to see various levels of people at one place… all mostly fighting for their privacy in that totally undisciplined public place… (am sorry am not blaming any human for this… as I mentioned, its human irony… am no different)

- Never ever in free darshan queue again in my life…. I normally wouldn’t mind the difficulty that I encounter in any temple visit .. this time it was extreme and testing..

- the smell of the ladoos near the temple, the sound of the balaji songs, the well formatted streets, unorganized crowd, the scenic view of surrounding hills… will make feel ecstatic….and nudge one to come again and again….

- the darshan was awesome and I feel the energy in me when I had the full view of my favourite lord of seven hills…. After all I feel more privellaged to be a hindu and a devotee of balaji as I feel the good things happening in my life is pushed well and maintained by this supreme force… If you are an aethist I would still recomed you to visit this temple to realize the changing energy levels in you ( nothing super natural… pure science)

Here is the video clip made by mate to shortly present the whole trip in a nutshell of pics :)

Uncle

I am 14 years old living in our same own home all the years right from my birth. Just like any other young man of my age, I love sports too. I play variety of them with football being my favourite. Recently my street mates and me planned to clean up the small ground in the end of the street and make it a proper badmitton court so that we don’t have to look for one far away every time.

I took the initiative and made the plans with my mates. We splitted and collected money from all the residents in the street. Some didn’t bothered and some encouraged us and some wanted to play with us once the work is done. The uncle lives opposite to my house is one of that kind. I knocked the door aiming for 10-20 rs. fund but taken by surprise to see him given me 100 bucks with out giving a second thought. ‘Good work chaps, do call me when you start playing and I will be glad to join you’. I was happy to see the generosity in him.

We further collected money from all corners and managed it well to clean the ground, fix the poles, buy net, rackets and shuttle corks. All done and we kicked off with a small knock out tournament. It was fun and I was specially happy. I felt like the king of the ground and I started inviting the donors one by one. My opposite house uncle showed his pleasure and he even had his own pair of rackets. I was very happy as all the rackets we had were useless.

I took him to the ground and all my mates were happy too. We greeted the uncle and offered him a place to join our doubles knock out tournament that we conduct every day with the available number of participants. Today we 8 people were there. Handy enough, we made teams quickly. Uncle is the only adult in our whole gang. He looked a sort of nervous and tensed, I cant make out. I allotted the worst player in our gang to him as I anticipated that uncle will compensate the over all efficiency. I joined one of the other chap of my own age and skill. There were these 2 10th standard guys always stay in same team and they play for their school too. One more team formed with 2 8th standard guys. All set and were ready.

The first match was between the uncle’s team and my team. The other chaps will do the umpiring part and the cheering audience. The atmosphere was electric and lively. I am enjoying every second. ‘Uncle, you do the first service’ I ordered him. ‘Its ok, you start’ he gave a gentle smile but chaos in his face. I did the service and uncle cant manage to take it. ‘Uncleeee missed the first take in his career here’ the so called commentator/opponents screamed and I felt pity on the uncle. I thought he is not as good as I expected. The next service went to his partner and he messed up too.

‘Uncle’s team is in trouble’ again commentators started to embarrass uncle. This time my service to uncle and he smashed the cork back to my face with in a flash. ‘Oh… uncle got his form and rocking’ these commentator idiots are hyping everything. The game went on and we were no match for the uncle. Finally we lost in a huge difference. I however enjoyed and din bothered losing to an adult but I cant see the fun of winning on uncle’s face and I cant think of a reason. He should be proud to win with having a worst player in our gang as his partner.

The next game was between those 10th std. guys and 8th std. guys. Obviously these athletic well strong big guys crushed the 8th guys to death so quickly. ‘Here is the finals between the uncle’s team and the 10th guys team’ the commentators thinks that they are speaking for world cup finals. Me took the referee position to avoid fights. Uncle was giving all those crocodile smiles here and then. The match started ‘Uncle serving… oh no ! uncle’s partner cant take the return smash from the opponents’ the commentators were fully charged despite the loss against the 10th guys in previous match. Uncle tried to play his best to win but the 10th guys were challenging. ‘Match point serve for uncle’ my mate shouted. I liked uncle’s game and he is doing well but he is still worried inspite of having good lead. Oh ya, he won the tournament and we all wished him. He took the wishes with simple thanks with out expressing much. My mate murmered to me ‘He thinks he is roger federer’.. I laughed and answered ‘Roger is tennis champ’… he din speak to me after that but I got what he actually meant.

We all invited uncle for next morning’s play. ‘Yeah, I will definitely be there’ he answered in a tiry tone. I never seen him again after that day and we all are still surprised to know the reason.

-- The End --

Dear readers,

I guess you would have guessed who would be the uncle, played a ‘KEY’ role in the above extract. Here are the reasons why the uncle never ever showed a happy smile all over the story and never turned up to that ground ever again.

-Uncle expected atleast 2-3 adults of his age in the ground and unfortunately all were kids.

-Uncle was always feared about his image ‘What if the uncle loses the game to kids’

-Finally, uncle feels that he never heard so many ‘uncle’ in his life as he heard in that ground. Pity man, that 10th std. guy looked like only 2-3 years younger than him and even he called him as ‘UNCLE’

So my dear fellow age mates. Next time you go play with kids, make sure you don’t have this uncle syndrome that might take the night’s sleep out of you.

With best regards,

The Angry ‘Uncle’.

Oh, Wow !!!

I never usually intend to put forward messages or external links in my posts.... however, i cant stop refering this one.... feel-good-factor for chaps of my kind.... my kind??? waz that??? chk out the link ;)

http://www.ibnlive.com/news/regular-blogging-could-improve-your-social-life/60468-11.html