My views on Tirupati and TirumalaWe just came back from Tirupati and here are my views about it.
We were always wondering all these years, why we have not seen Tirupati. In fact, it is almost 10 years since I have been planning to go to Tirupati and finally we could make it in the first week of December, 2006.
Having lived with some wild imaginations and very high expectations about the richest god in this world, I was a bit disappointed with the situation there.
First of all let me start with the amenities provided at Tirupati. The AP Tourism guest house was good enough for families or individuals. There were good bath rooms and big rooms with cots, colour TV and fans. The best part is the bath rooms are fitted with water boilers. But the minus point is where we stayed the washbasin tap was not functioning, and water was getting logged due to the level of floor is not towards the drain pipe. This is a very small problem and could have been better handled or maintained.
Canteen at the Guest House: Canteen is big, clean. The food quality is also very good at a slightly high price compared to regular hotels. Non-availability of hot milk and parcel facility, we had to face problems. As we had to travel with a little kid, this was a necessary thing. I think this will advice those who wants to travel to Tirupati with their kids. Probably, these things are available at other places, but not where we stayed.
The Travel facility from Tirupati to Tirumala hilltop: There are adequate buses
available to reach there at a nominal fare. The best part is one can buy a return ticket and use the same return service ticket in next three days if you cannot manage darshanam in one day. Once you reach there, you have plenty of fast food stalls and small hotels where you can have your breakfast. If you have plans to have something after the darshanam, then there are chances that you end up finishing your lunch as the breakfast items might get over by then. We had this problem as I wanted some idlis for my little son and I could not find them anywhere. I had to manage with wadas instead.
Darshanam: We have two options here. 1. Viakuntam 2. General
Viakuntam (VIP Darshanam) Queue: You have to pay Rs.50 for this and there is a separate queue in which there are few people on a normal day. It takes 2 to 3 hours before you finish the darshanam.
General Queue: The general queue is very long and a bit unruly. There will be thousands of people on any given day in this queue. It takes much longer in this queue to reach the Garbha gudi where lord Venkateshwara resides. There is a catch here which I must tell you. Both these queues join into one after the 1st dwaram. From there it is all absolute chaos. Especially, when you are carrying kids, it is necessary to take proper care of them as there will be pushing from front and back of you. Sometimes, the pushing is heavy and I think on a weekend or any auspicious day, it will be much difficult to manage as all devotees will be in a hurry to reach the 5th dwaram.
Main Darshanam: It is very difficult to have a full top to bottom of Lord Venkateshwara as one can stop there hardly for a few seconds (as little as 2 seconds). The security personnel will push you immediately. It is advisable to see the god right from the 3rd dwaram itself. You can see the idol though it is not very clear the moment you enter 3rd dwaram. You must reach the 5th dwaram to be right in front of the god.
It seems, the devotees were allowed till the 7th dwaram earlier. But, now, due to the security reasons it is limited to go up to 5th dwaram only. From here also you cannot see the God clearly as there are no adequate lights in the garbha gudi. The oil lamps are the only source of light there inside. Once you finish your darshanam, you come out to see the hundi where devotees offer gifts to the god. On the way to hundi, you can see some of the temple authorities counting currency notes which are collected from the hundi. There, they offer the free meals tickets to all the devotees. Once the hundi is over, you can collect the free prasadam from one of the two counters. There will be queue here also.
Once you finish all these, you can come out to the prasadam laddu counters. Laddu prasadam is very famous and has its own taste. It is believed that Lord Venkateshwara adds something to this. It is not freely distributed. If you are a Viakuntam Darshanam ticket holder, then you get 2 laddus. The price of these laddus is included in the Rs.50 you paid. Otherwise, you have to buy the tickets for prasadam which are available at Rs.10 and Rs.20. Once you show the tickets at the counter, they give this laddu prasadam.
Once this is over, you are free to come out and see other places like Papa nasanam or Patala Ganga. We are unfortunate to miss these places as it was not part of our tour package. However, I will update you people some time later, as I have plans to go in near future and that too on my own, not part of package tour. You have the bus stand nearby and always come to Tirupati, from where you can plan your return trip or Srikalahasti which is just 40 km away. Normally, those people who go to Tirupati go to see this place also.
Head Tonsuring: It is a practice of devotees to tonsure their heads before going to the darshanam. This is done in a place called Kalyana Katta. It is a free service offered by the Devasthanam (temple) authority. However, you may have to pay the barber some money to do things easily and without any cuts as such. Though you see notice boards displaying not to offer money to the barbers, it is advisable. This place Kalyana Katta is a huge place and many devotees can tonsure their heads at any given time.
General Observations:1. The maintenance department at Tirupati AP Tourism Guest House needs to check the status of their rooms especially bathrooms every now and then. All devoteed are not good people, some people want to break something or some peopls accidentally operate the things harshly and they stop functioning. Otherwise, this facility is offers very good rooms at a very reasonable price. An A/C room with two single beds is offered at Rs.600 per day and a non-A/C room for Rs.200.
2. The canteens should offer hot milk for the sake of children and parcel the food items. As some children might sleep at that time, it is not possible to feed them or may be they have a different time to eat.
3. Kalyana Katta could have been much better place. There are great chances that one might get separated from their family members as this place is so big and there are many different places connected by different stair cases and paths. It is confusing. I have seen the Kalyana Katta at Annavaram which is much simple compared to the one at Tirupati.
4. Darshanam Queue: The queues should be a single line form queues. Everyone wants to see the god first. Currently what happens is people form 2 or 3 queues where there is supposed to be one queue. This creates problems for those who go there with their kids. (Please do not allow your kids to walk on their own as there are chances of missing them somewhere). No one looks below; everyone looks over the heads of the front runners. Kids might get missed or even stamped below them. We (my wife and me) decided before coming here itself that, under any circumstances we put our son on the floor when we are in the temple premises. We carried him all the way. This is advisable to everyone. You have very bright chances of missing them in between those thousands of devotees.
5. Maintenance Issues at the temple: Many of the queue dividers in the main temple are in very bad shape. They are all fixed in the ground tightly but due to the crowd, the all are moving, some of them are bent and etc. They should close the temple for devotees in some off season and give a face lift to the temple. It is a very difficult task to close the temple. Probably, due to the heavy turn-out of devotees is not allowing them to maintain it properly. But, they should do something about it. Some renovation is really required. They can easily control the crowd by making single line queues. The current lanes are broad and this crowd is creating chaos inside the temple. Free prasadam place should be cleaned every now and then. Tirumala is a place visited by all classes of people and many of them don't have a quality life. There is no point in educating them about the cleanliness. Many people don't understand the purpose of the bins kept there and throw the leaf cups (In which they give the prasadam) there it self. Normally,
pulihora is given as prasadam. Here, I leave, walking on those cups and pulihora to your imagination.
There should be enough lights in the Garbha Gudi. I don't know whether this is allowed or not. The Tirupati Devasthanam follows certain rules defined in the vedas. Perhaps, one of them says, no artificial lights in the Garbha Gudi. That is the reason many people can see the god only bits and pieces.
If you want to see the god thoroughly, then either you have to be a VIP or you have to visit Tirumala for at least one week and go to darshanam everyday, so that you can concentrate on part at a time and see the God thoroughly. Richest God's temple should have been much cleaner and much organized. Both the things are missing currently. That too, we went in an off season and that too on a weekday. Imagine the situation in season or weekends.
