Sri Athivaradhar!
!!! Om Namo Narayana!!! !! Jai Sri Varadha !!
Always knew that the crowd (should I call it an human ocean!) was thronging for His darshan. So, did the Rs. 300/- booking through the tnhrce website for our family (along with my father) and thought mission accomplished! It is after four trials that even that web booking was possible.. the first 3 attempts ended up in failures (the server too busy message!). So, this seamless booking was a good omen for things to come (or that is what I hoped it to be!).
My brother had the darshan on Saturday August 3, 2019 via the same webbooking ticket route and told that he waited for just 1-1/2 hours for darshan.. Bolstered by his words, I thought having booked on a week day, the darshan should be a smooth affair. But, He had other ideas..
The webbooking was for 8PM darshan.. Our plan was to start by 4.30PM from here and reach by 5.30/6PM and stand in the queue for the darshan. This means, we can have the darshan earlier and can come home sooner.
With such a beautiful plan, I was (over)confident of the darshan. I even chided my wife when she said that her mother warns of a big queue and darshan times are getting longer (close to 3hours waiting time). I told her my brother who visited on a 'weekend' had a darshan in 1-1/2 hours.. So, our weekday darshan will happen sooner than that. Don't worry.
My colleague, Ramanathan, who came with his family, before starting to Kanchipuram, told me that it is taking close to 4hours for web booking tickets to have darshan.. It was the second warning sign. In fact, his friend's car wasn't allowed to go beyond Wallajahbad due to overcrowding in the Kanchipuram town. So, our plan was to take a detour before Wallajahbad and enter the Kanchipuram and avoid the main roads. This is so that we can some how try to park the car near the temple.
I called my another colleague (Vivek Surya) who does service for Sri Utaradhi mutt, near the temple for some route guidance. He asked me to find my way to Enathur and from there he'll take me to his mutt. I turned on the Google maps for the route.. it guided me through some interior village roads (my father was getting jittery by now.. he was muttering "are you sure where you are going?".. I tried to pacify him and said "have faith in Athivaradhar and Google!". Finally reached the Enathur town and called up Vivek. He was waiting with another friend and was stuck on the other side of a railway level crossing.. He asked me to come over and meet him on the other side (which made sense!).
Luckily, my wait at the level crossing was only for a few minutes and the gates opened (which I took as another good omen!).. By this time the sky opened up and it started raining (should I say pounding!). The person accompanying Vivek came with me in my car (as he didn't have a rain coat!). So, it was agreed that we'll follow Vivek to reach the mutt. None of us in the car knew the route though.. We had to simply follow him. The rain was relentless and I still don't know how Vivek managed to ride his bike in that rain.
On cue, we missed him and took a wrong turn at a junction. He shared his current location and I just hoped Google will guide me properly again. Somehow, we found him and from there, with rain, thunderstorm and lightning for company, we simply followed Vivek.. Just like that, we reached his home and relaxed a bit there. Vivek went and checked for any open route to reach the temple.. Luckily enough, there was a opening (again one more good omen!). Once more the car followed the bike till it reached a safe parking space. This should be around 7PM or so. I thought, we are keeping good timing!
The twist in the tale starts from now!
Vivek brought us his mutt's "Devotee" ID cards, which are normally allowed in the 'VVIP' darshan queue, because, these are volunteer's batch. The police stationed there, pointed to my father and asked "is he a volunteer? Go in the web-booking queue.. This path is already houseful!" The other policeman was shouting "the web-booking queue is free now.. please join that to have a quick darshan".. With these "encouraging" words, I felt we can go the proper way and not use influence. Although, Vivek gave me a look of "are you sure?" he kept quiet and allowed us to proceed (he had a lot of work in the mutt.. it was quite nice of him to have spent so much time for us. we are thankful to him for all the help he did!).
I asked the policeman, "where is the web ticket queue?" and he (cunningly) gestured "take this road and turn right".. I thought, so easy.. we will just walk till there. The muddy road added to the travails though. Somehow, after two or three "right" turns, we finally found the web ticket queue.. Well, it is just that it wasn't a queue yet.. just that some hundreds of people were standing on the road that leads to the queue.
This was the next warning sign! The police opened the gate (it was just a rope) every 30 minutes and allowed 50 people to enter the queue. It was 8.30 PM and when I counted, we were some 700th person in the line! It was looking like the rope won't be opened at all. My wife and kids were getting restless by now. With her getting calls from her parents and friends, who were discouraging her from the darshan itself. After some heated conversations, normalcy was restored (you guessed it right!). We turned back from the queue.
There, we joined Ramanathan's family and the ladies decided that we need to go to Ramanathan's house for dinner and start from there to home. After some deliberations, we finally decided that only the ladies and kids will go.. while the gentlemen will stand in the queue and return only after the darshan. After some reluctance, my wife too agreed and we were now standing in the 'road'.. Now the clock showed 9.30 PM.
There was one archakar who told that the temple will be open till 1.30 AM and all the devotees will have the darshan. This was encouraging to hear though. So, we stood there and was conversing how unplanned the whole thing is and other general stuffs.. By 10PM, the police men started announcing that "this is the end of darshan timing.. all of you please return".. Well, this was one thing which no one was willing to hear.. Everyone shouted back at the police and after some 15minutes or so he relented and then told in a stern voice "only people with ticket will be allowed".. Well, I thought, only those with web-ticket were standing there. How wrong I can be? The crowd included 'donors', 'VIP' tickets and other people too.
Now it is 10.30 PM and finally the rope opened and with the same batching technique, we were able to enter the queue now. The queue was moving quite swiftly for all the stagnation in the road though. So, this gave some confidence.. After some move and wait and move we finally entered the sanctum and all the pain/anger/disappointment vanished and the heart was filled with only grace, His grace.. Wow! what a darshan it was. The archakars did a harathi and all our heart were filled with devotion and bliss.
Finally after squeezing through the out-queue, we finally reached Ramanathan's house and had a dinner (is it breakfast?) by 00.30 hours. Both of us decided to leave right away instead of sleeping over because we won't be able to wake up early morning and also the thought of next day's queue was unnerving. So, we started by 1.30AM and reached our home by 2.30AM and dozed of.
!!! Om Namo Narayana!!! !! Jai Sri Varadha!!
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