10. A Trip to Tirumala Tirupati (Category:- Real Experiences)

Last week we got a chance to visit Tirupati. We stayed there for 3 days (27th Feb-01st Mar'10).
27th morning we stepped down the Train and went straight to the back side of the Railway Station where Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) office was there. We had to stand in a queue for booking the Darshanam ticket.
It was early morning and the environment was very pleasant. It thrilled me to see a 'Veda PathaShala' in the same premises out of which many Veda-Vidhyarthi(s) were coming out. They were dressed in Indian traditional clothes (Dhoti), had the sacred thread visible, and nicely smeared Namam on their forehead. That scene reminded me of the movie on Sri 'Adi Shankaracharya' made in Sanskrit. I felt as if I had traversed back in time to 50-100 years back. That entire environment (leaving the people in queue aside) was so cool and pleasant that i wished i could also study Vedas in such a great school and dress myself so traditionally.

My happiness was not even subsided that another scene had taken my heart to the 9th cloud of elation. All of a sudden i heard a voice; a very familiar one, which i always loved to hear. Yes, that was the mooing of a cow. I turned my head towards my right and found that a herd of cows with their calves were standing there. 2 of them were pure white, one was striped in brown and white. Their calves resembled their mothers.
Within my heart i addressed them as 'Gow-Mata' and very happily started gazing at them. They were all Indian cows. Since my childhood i loved Cows a lot. I love only Indian cows and do not have much affinity towards foreign breeds like Jersey etc.
Indian cows have a heart of a mother. They remain innocent, meek, and love us like a real mother. On the contrary, foreign breeds usually remain short tempered. To milk a foreign breed cow usually i found people tying their hind legs and making them vulnerable and then milk. But my favorite Indian mother cows are largehearted, loving and giving mothers. They usually don't need any rope work. My philosophy is, what's the use of those foreign milk machines which produce tonnes of lifeless white liquid? I would always rather prefer to drink just an ounce of milk from the Indian gow mata which contains the sweetness of her motherly love making it equivalent to ambrosia.

Soon we purchased the Darshan tickets and our allotted timing was 10:00 PM on the same day. In the evening we traveled to Tirupati, which is on the 7th Hill. We stood in the Darshan queue and by God's grace there was not much crowd. I knew the norm of Darshan which states that one should first see 'Lord Varaha Swami' and then only one should see lord Venkateswara. But unfortunately i had a misconception that Varaha Swami is also situated in the same place around Venkateswara. All the time my eyes were eagerly searching and looking out for Varaha Swami, but all i could find was venkateswara everywhere. Finally i had to see Venkateswara only and then i enquired a guard and came to know about the actual place where Varaha Swami resides. Better luck next time!
After collecting the Laddu from the same place, same night we came back to Tirupati where we stayed in a TTD booked room.

In Tirupati we visited Mangapatnam where Goddess Alamelumanga (Wife of Venkateswara) resides. Also went to Srinivasamanga Patnam where Lord Venkateswara's elder brother GovindaRaju's temple is built. Both the places were very beautiful. My mother Alamelumanga gave us her Darshan with all her grace. Crowd was less and we had nice time sitting in that beautiful temple of the universal mother. In Govindaraju's temple i wished i could stay there for my whole life. I usually get attracted towads archaic form of buildings, traditions, culture etc. So the temples which had old Indian design patterns, had taken my heart and soul away with them.

During the whole 3 days Trip i was constantly chanting Lord Venkateswara's name and Mother Goddess' names. Another happy incident happened with me. For me it is not less than a miracle, hence i would call it a Miracle not an incident. I love 3 mother goddesses more than my life viz. Goddess Parvati, Lakshmi, and Saraswati. And often i pray them to make me their own son forever. I usually ask them to give me their names so that i can become Parvati-Putra, Lakshmi-Putra and Saraswati-Putra. These 3 days also i prayed the same to Goddess Alumelumanga (Lakshmi). While we were coming out from our rooms to catch our Train, we saw in the same TTD premises a tourist-Bus on which the name was written as 'SantoshLakshmi'. The very sight of that name made me overflow with happiness and tears rolled down the cheeks out of uncontrollable gladness. I thanked mother Lakshmi for having indirectly assured me of making me her son by showing me a name where she attached her name with that of mine.

Finally i was back to my city on 3rd Morning and Joined office chores as usual!