After the darshan, we completed the rest of the formalities including visits to other sannidhis and also the hundial contribution. We regrouped at the main entrance and were waiting for our guide to get us our laddoos. By then, it was already well past 8 PM and finally, the lack of intake of food was beginning to show into my psyche. The fact that I’d been standing for quite a long time didn’t help things.
We finally got our pack of laddoos and started moving out of the temple premises by 8.45 or so. I had to make a quick halt at one of the road side shops to procure ‘rakshai’ threads, since some of my team members had specifically asked me to get that. Since it was getting late, I thought that we could perhaps go down to Tirupati by one of the ubiquitous jeeps available there. It would have cost us like 300-400 bucks and would have saved us quite some time.
This suggestion too was shot down with the same vigor exhibited on other occasions earlier in the day. I thought we could at least finish off the dinner at one of the restaurants near the temple itself. We saw a very decent looking one near the Vaikuntam complex. I reasoned that the presence of elderly people who were getting exhausted, accompanied by the fact that none of us had eaten anything after the lunch at noon and topped up by the fact that we had spent some 3 hours waiting inside and outside the temple, would make people complete the dinner there itself.
But somehow, the usual majority was hell bent on going back to the Hotel and eat only there. Thankfully, we at least took a jeep back to the petrol bunk where we had kept our footwear and other valuables like mobile phones. We bid farewell to our guide and walked down to the bus stand. There was no bus immediately available and we then took one bus that was headed to Chennai.
Most of us got seats right at the end and the bus started some 10 minutes later. The ride down was anything but comfortable and holding on to a bag of 10 laddoos, with an attempt not to let them get crushed, didn’t help me at all.
We finally reached the hotel at 9.45 PM and luckily, the restaurant was still open. We all had a very hearty dinner and I might have gone slightly overboard too. But that was the minimum I could do to keep myself from crying!
I also arranged for the cab to take us from the hotel to the College for our interview on Sunday. I am sure there would have been enough buses to go there as well, but since it was official, no one objected to booking a cab for 1600 bucks.
We decided to meet up in the restaurant for breakfast at 7.15 AM the next morning and then we all went back to our respective rooms.
[To be continued in Part 5]
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