The special darshan at Tirumala was scheduled for 4 PM that day. Since it was nearly 11.15 AM when we reached the hotel, we agreed to regroup quickly and have our lunch in the same hotel. Again, there were comments that the food in a hotel’s restaurant would be costly, but things were settled quickly since everyone was famished and we had a deadline.
The lunch turned out to be a not so expensive affair after all, costing around 70 bucks for a Thali. Meanwhile, I had enquired about the cost of booking a cab for all of us to go to Tirumala and Tiruchaanoor. The cost came to around 1600 bucks. This whopping sum was shot down instantaneously by all but me and another person. The rationale was that there are a lot of buses plying frequently to these places. Also, since the distance involved was less, the quote given by the cab guy was deemed to be too expensive.
After we completed the lunch, we (some of us) had a quick change of clothes and headed out of the hotel. While I had come up to change, enquiries had been made about the access to Tiruchaanoor and the nearest bus stop was identified. People had decided that even taking an auto was not worth it.
So all 9 of us (breakup: me, another guy, one with his father, another with his elder sister and mother and the last one with her mother) went to the bus stop which was 5 minutes away. It was not the distance or time, just that we had to cross a road which had fast moving buses and other vehicles. Being a hilly region, the vehicles were clearly making good use of the gradient road.
Even as we were reaching the bus stop, we saw a bus. The suo moto leader of the trip started running after the bus goading all of us to run and catch the bus. It finally turned out that the bus we all ran after wasn’t really the one we had to catch!
After a 5-10 minute wait, we finally got a bus and reached Tiruchaanoor temple. Thankfully, there was no objection from anyone for taking the Rs.40 special darshan ticket. I am being very cynical, but perhaps the 2 free laddus included in the ticket, helped swing the votes towards this ticket!
Anyways, we had a good darshan of Padmavathy Ammavaaru (Thaayaar in Tamil) and headed back to the hotel. Here again, my only supporter and me suggested that we take an auto. But we were informed that the bus tickets for the return trip were already procured while coming to this temple. Since we dare not waste the 8 rupees ticket, we boarded a bus.
We reached the hotel and it was decided that we had to reconvene in 30 minutes max, so that we could reach Tirumala on time. We still nurtured hopes of visiting the Kalahasthi temple after the darshan at Tirumala, since we expected the special darshan to be completed in a jiffy. Little did we know what was in store for us.
[To be continued in Part 3]
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