Yet another trip and yet another account.
Vrooooooommmm.... No it's not the Honda that's speeding away, it's the josh-machine Ford's iKon. I was blessed to be on this mean machine to transport myself to the world's richest temple (Is there a contender?), Tirupati. The whole drive constituted 250kms or greater of wilderness, human habitation (former beating the latter), lakes, hills and what not? Blimey! It was on ammaaaazing start!!!
Though there were several pit-stops, gash! the journey lasted only 4.5hrs. It was a pure ecstasy (return journey was something more than this and cannot be explained, should be felt!).
Warm-air greeted us. We knew we reached Tirupati (that days forecast was hot). It was, if Calvin's dad was to answer, due to solar winds.
We started on Friday at 1500hrs and reached the Tirupati at 1930hrs. Purpose: to attend our ex-team-member's (Nagendra, at present employed in iNautix) Marriage. We reached on-time for the reception, the time as you can note was the time when the dinner plates were ready and the buffet laid out. On reaching, we were met with the confusion, there were two mandabams and the buffet was laid on the lawn in-between these buildings, now how are we to decide to lay our hands or not? So, we hunted for the bride-groom to (this shows that we never met him on reaching, we directly went to the buffet!) get his consent but finally caught him red-handed on the podium in the adjacent lawn with his would-be wife and happily shaking hands with strangers-to-us. We followed the same ritual, went to the podium and shook hands and congratulated, and gave-him-no-gift, our presence was supposed to be his gift!
Before reaching the hall, we went to get the tickets (only for two of us, the third person was there for the wedding only) to get our clearance and fix the appointment with Eduguntalawada, in English - God. We were awed by the techie advancement there, no more bands tied on your wrists, it was all-the-way bio-metrics ruling there. Yes, fingerprint recognition. We were mistaken when we noted the time for clearance to be 900pm on Sunday but finally cleared our vision and noted it to be 900am on Sunday. We were relieved to have the rendezvous at 0900hrs as our scheduled departure time on Sunday was fixed to 1400hrs.
Of the seven team members only three (Naveen - my PL, Rajkumar - my TL and myself) of us made it to the marriage. Our groom was at his heights to see us. He greeted us and we stood with him and took a picture with him and his fiance.
The food was great and I, if not the others, gobbled up enough as though I'm seeing food for the first time. Maan, the curd rice was good!
After which it was time to say goodnight and good-bye to Rajkumar (that makes only two of us to enjoy the return journey). It was 2200hrs and people were still pouring in to great the couples. We were sitting idly and finally it ended at 2230hrs, the couple excused and went to dine. It was close to 2315hrs when our groom returned and we spoke freely. He informed us that he had booked an A/C room in the Srinivasam - Amenities for pilgrims, for us. We were demanding him about the Bachelor's party! All died down when the time was nearing midnight, so we took the key drove to the center. After roaming around for sometime we found our room. It was quite a big one for a cost of Rs. 600!!! It was a Suite!!!
We rested our worn out souls and planned for Sri Kalahasti for the next day, Saturday! We finally slept dead men. And finally got up around 100hrs and cleansed before stepping out for the trip of 45kms to Sri Kalahasti.
Apart from Kalahasti, the other plan for the evening was to climb up the hill and get back that night.
Kalahasti, a Shiv temple, gets it crowd due to Tirupati, explains Naveen. The temple's lingam is made up of elephant, snake and a spider - also explained by Naveen. It was around noon when we reached the temple, took a special darshan ticket and waited for our turn to get a glimpse of the lingam . The temple was old and quite dilapidated. The Sun was at his highest and was burning. We made ourself almost-a-bakra when we or on the contrary a guide hired himself to us. He left us after we paid him 20bucks. We replenished ur body fluid with nimbu-soda .
Reached room around 1400hrs had light lunch at a restaurant opposite to the Srinivasam . We were sound asleep when someone banged our doors, it was the service-boy, reminding that it was time to vacate the room. We explained that the stay had been extended to Sunday, and we were care-of S.C.V. Naidu, the local MLA and a close relative of Nagendra, groom. He left, smiling. We continued our sleep until there was another bang and it was Nagendra's relative saying that they've extended the room for one more day. We thanked them as they left, else we would've shoved them off!!! It was 1700hrs and we readied ourself for the up-hill task ;-)
We started the climb at 1900hrs, Naveen smuggled his favourites in wallet ;-) The total climb covered seven hills, thus the other name to Venky - Ezhymalayan (meaning, lord of seven hills). Everytime I've an appointment with Venky, I climb and it usually takes me 6hrs to do so. Naveen was against this plan, and said that it must be covered in half the time. The first hill, as Naveen puts it was a-piece-of-cake . Well, it was a piece-of-cake, but the piece was usually in terms of the share Obelix has. It was a huge piece. But we finished the first hill in record time of 50mins. Boy, that was fast!!!
The rest of the six were peanuts (they truly were ;-)) Whole of the journey was filled with Alpenliebe, orange candies, nimbu-soda, water, bajji, raw-mango and Telugu version of Munnah bhai MBBS. There were conversation on GOD, Philosophy, Nature and blah blah blah. Maan, it was a good trip.
And guess what, we made up the hill in a record time of 3hrs. Every inch of our body was craving for rest. And we gave it to them at 0100hrs. We went hunting for a hotel at 0000hrs, and finally found one. Gobbled up two chapptis and left to anantha-sayanam.
Next day, Sunday took the mean-machine - iKon up the hill. We reached the long waiting queue exactly at 0900hrs. All the way up i heard my favourite music channels from Madras - Radio mirchi and Suryan FM (the signals were good till Chitoor!!!)
There were people from 1100hrs queue. We still made it. At 1000hrs the queue stopped moving. We finally learned the reason - Anil Ambani. I saw him going, in the adjacent queue, without hassles (Reliance split was publicly announced that day). That war-monger, nincompoop couldn't choose a better day to offer his prayers!? He almost ruined our schedule. The queue, finally, nudged at 1100hrs.
Met Venky, cursed the people who shoved us out of the garbha-graha. Naveen got pissed off, cursed them violently! Went took the free prasadam (puliogore). And left to collect our, ever-famous-Tirupati-ladoos. It was over in 5 mins. A second with Venky and 299 secs to get out. Got out ladoos and had it as feast. Those ladoos have something special in them!!! Had another nimbu-soda and ran to the car as we were bare-footed.
We descended, it was cool with many hair-pin turns.
The return journey started at 1400hrs and lasted 4hrs only! The working speed was between 50kmph and 140kmph. The road and the machine is a driver's heaven - a paradise!!!
Naveen was happy racing out a Scorpio and also thanked the Indian system. Stopped hither and thither and took pictures.
Objective was finally achieved. It would have been better if there were more makkal!!! Anyway, all for good.
"To cherish this trip forever, Booleans were changed, changes saved, and a copy has been sent to you all!"
The Coorg trip write-up is still under process of completion!!!
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