India Vacation experience - June 11th to Aug 8th 2021

It all started with my H1B Petition getting approved within 1.5 weeks after it was filed with USCIS on Dec 2020. Ironically, it took more than 3 months for my employer to file it with USCIS. And in that time period, lot of things happened – Trump lost the elections, a US court reversed the DOL’s rule to hike the salary of H1B applicants (by close to 100%) – I wouldn’t have been impacted by this anyway as my LCA was drawn much before the rule came into force (abruptly), etc.

 

If I cover every single aspect of what happened between Jan 21 to Aug 21, it will be too big of an article to write or read. I will try keep this short and crisp, but at the same time trying to convey the essence of everything.

 

Onward Tickets:

1.       Decided to go on leave and applied for it. After that, never bothered to check the nitty gritties of visa stamping process. All I bothered was to get tickets for cheapest price! From Jan to Mar this is what I did.

2.       Booked the tickets in Lufthansa for cheapest price. Was ecstatic. But realized the mistake later – travelling to India via Germany is fine even with expired US visa. But travel back is problematic even for the exempted category travelers, due to confusion prevailing at that time.

3.       Spent several days calling them and pleading to cancel and issue full refund. Frustration reached peak levels. After a point, I just let it go. Anyways I can travel to India… challenges of travelling back can be dealt later.

4.       But thankfully, Lufthansa themselves cancelled the flight from Bangalore due to pandemic. But neither they sent email nor there was any call. Thanks to travel group in Telegram, I came to know about it and immediately called up the airline and got the refund issued! Problem #1 solved by itself.

5.       I didn’t book tickets again till first week of June – due to so much uncertainty prevailing after April 30^th travel ban proclamation. Finally, after carefully analyzing the inputs from Telegram groups, decided to go for the overly pricey AI. Problem#2.

6.       AI too cancelled the flight exactly a week before! Worst part – even today I’ve not got the refund they promised.

Finally---------

7.       After what seemed an eternity lost in finding other cheaper flight option, I managed to book on Etihad on June 6^th, for travel on June 11^th! A record of sort I thought – for having managed to get cheap tickets for international flight on the week of travel!

Visa stamping appointment:

1.       From Jan till march, except ticket booking and other work, I never bothered to check about visa stamping appointment. I assumed that we would have to go to Chennai anyways and I can do that later. Every now and then I just checked the portal and saw that “first available appointment” was in next week or so. Another mistake? Let’s see.

2.       A call with Mohit one day helped me to know that due to pandemic, USCIS has extended the visa interview waiver option from 3 years to 4 years now.

3.       In order to take advantage of it, I need to book appointment by end of June last week itself.

4.       Immediately I logged in and started looking for appointments – I came to know that “first available appointment” info in the home page was misleading info. No one knew what that was as one can never find appointment around that date!!

5.       To my disappointment, there was no slot available in Chennai within June end. None in Mumbai or Hyd too –locations closer to me. Only 2 locations had it – Delhi and Kolkata! Went with Kolkata. Thought I did another mistake booking the appointment so late, by believing the “first available appointment” trap.

Finally----------

6.       There were no mistakes anywhere. Booking the appointment late helped me to get benefit of extended interview waiver policy. And booking in Kolkata was huge, huge benefit. Biggest of anything else. How? The third wave of pandemic forced all 3 consulates to shut the operations till June end. The only 2 that operated were – Kolkata and Delhi!! In that too, Delhi started earlier to Kolkata by a week or so.

7.       The time period from April 30^th till Last week of May was very depressing. At one side the news of Pandemic wreaking havoc and on another side the news of consulates shutting down, issuing 221 g, cancelling scheduled appointments. Several times I decided to cancel the travel plan and each time I ended up cancelling not the travel plan, but the plan to cancel the plan😊

8.  How can i forget this. On the day of my appointment at Kolkata, I left my Hotel room at 9.30AM itself for my 12.30 PM appointment, thinking that they will let me in early. But I was denied early entry and was told to come back 30Mins before my appointment time. For next 2 hrs, I roamed around the central Kolkata by walk, getting drenched completely in my own sweat due to the humidity! Thanks to Covid, no temple was allowing devotees. So my plan of visiting famous temples of Kolkata didn't happen.

9.  18th June was my apointment. While handing over the documents, the person told me that the photo was not meeting the requirements. It should have been in white or off-white background, whereas ours was in Gray background. Plus there was a smile on my wife's face in the photo. Person was kind enough to offer me 2-3 hrs to get new photos if I wish. It was not so hard for me to make decision - there was covid lockdown at both Kolkata and Mysore. So neither can my wife take her photo and send me the softcopy nor I can take photo of myself in this unknown city during lockdown. So I said i'm ready to take risk.

10. Next week Thursday I recieved call from Kolkata. I was surprised. I picked the call and the person told me that he is from Kolkata VFS and he called to inform me that my DS 160 was not loading due to some technical issue. My wife's loaded fine. He was too kind. He requested me to fill a new DS 160 and share it next day. He apologised for it!! 

11. Now comes the interesting part. While filling up the new DS 160 I was referring to my old DS 160 and noticed that in the old form I had mentioned my highest qualification as "High School"!! Had the form loaded fine, I would have been rejected the visa easily!! I got shiver down spine.

 

India

1.       Well, what to say. Everything that we planned, we accomplished. But just that the order in which it was accomplished was laid down by God. We just went in the direction he took us. What is there to fear when he himself is holding our hands all the time.

2.       Initial 2 weeks – Lockdown ensured that we couldn’t go anywhere out of city. So, all the local work was done – Bank, post office, Locker work (which saw my mom falling down and getting her pelvic fractured), Rekha’s Aadhar updates, House cleaning and setup, Satyanarayana puja etc.

3.       Travel started from 3^rd week onwards. Took blessings of ever smiling and divine – Sri Raghavendra swami at Mantralaya. So, it was God’s intent to start our pilgrimage with blessings of Guru.

4.       Then the God gave us his Darshan at the abode of Venkatachala hills. Walk-in Darshan was stopped at Tirupati due to covid. So, God himself made me to call the Kashi mutt Guest house who himself guided me how to get the special darshan tickets by booking the Kalyana seva tickets, without I asking for it. (300 Rs ticket used to get sold out like hot cake within mins. Kalyana Seva will get two 300 Rs tickets).

5.       After that – next week was full-fledged travel – refer the photo in Google album for full details. I can never forget the driving experience at Sigandhoor.

a.       Most of the places we covered, had opened up just Sunday of that week

b.       In Udupi, we enjoyed having darshan of the Lord multiple times. Even met my fav pravachana acharya – Vidwan Krishnaraja Kuthpadi.

c.       At Anegudde and Hattiangady temple, the Maha puja was done right when we arrived. Anegudde Ganapati even blessed us with Flower prasada during puja.

d.       DOUBLE LUNCH – yes, my first ever double lunch experience. At Kundapura, we had nice North Indian lunch at NR Nandini restaurant. After that we reached Hattiangady, where after the puja, we had Lunch prasada of the Lord!

6.       Met Varadh Maam, Vignesh Nayak Maam, got so many pujas done.

7.       June 13^th till Aug 8^th – passed like a movie trailer. What was happening, who was controlling…

 

Return Tickets

1.       The sad part of any vacation – returning.

2.       Etihad had cancelled all its flight operation -Thankfully. I got free cancellation and full refund for my July 27^th flight. I called up my office and requested to extend my leave by one more week – till 8^th Aug.

3.       Returning to US in August is costly affair – as the schools reopen in the month of Aug. Tickets were selling at an avg price of 1.2 Lacs per head!! Even that was difficult to book.

4.       Sat down to book the tickets on 5^th Aug. Nothing was available for less than 1.5 lacs. And I couldn’t book that also as I didn’t have such balance limit on India credit card, and on US cards I was not able to get the OTPs sent to US number.

5.       Got fully tensed. What next? I had promised to return on 8^th Aug to my company. Called up one manager and described the situation. He said he will try to get approval for me to work from India for a month, within which I will have to book my tickets and travel back. And I’ve to work in night shits (US shifts) during that one month.

6.       Though it looked like a solution, I was worried with the side-effects of working night shifts. Entire Day was spent contemplating various scenarios.

 

Finally

7.       Friday morning – God made me to give it a shot early morning itself. Thankfully it worked – was able to book tickets for 50k per head on British Airways!!

8.       So, here I’m. Breaking my own record set just 2 months back (onward journey tickets were booked a week before). International flight tickets were booked 2 days before the travel date, at economical price!

9.       Thankfully, UK had just announced on 6^th Aug that they will allow fully vaccinated transit passengers from 4a.m on 8^th Aug. My BA flight reaches London at 1.30 pm on 8^th Aug – this fits the definition of hair gap?

 

Covid lockdowns & hardships:

1.       First 2 weeks, there was partial lockdown in place – during which we got most of the Govt/other official works done – Bank, Lockers, Visa stamping.

2.       From 3^rd week onwards, Lockdown was relaxed up to 90% - during which we completed all the pilgrimages, Homa (can never forget the divine experience of sitting at late night Homa at Ravindra Acharya’s home at Udupi), shopping, doctor visits etc.

3.       Last week – Lockdown/curfew was reimposed on weekends – impacted us only for one day i.e. 7^th of Aug. 8^th of Aug anyways we traveled back to US.

4.       So all in all, Lockdown was not a major issue for us during the trip, except that we had to get the torturous RT-PCR test done before any flight journeys, Jingu included.

5.       During the month of May, when strict lockdown was being imposed Pan India, I had told myself that I’m ready to sit idly at home. For the entire vac. No matter what, I will travel. Only point of anxiety though was visa stamping. For that too I was trying prepare my mind – I had taken all imp stuff like files, documents etc. with me.

The entire trip was nothing less than a divine experience. What seemed like problems at several steps, were getting solved by itself. And each time it got solved, I was reminded of Gita lessons – we have to just keep going through it all, wherever the Lord takes us, completely detached from fears, illusions, anxiety, worry etc.

GURU BRAHMA

I was probably a 9th grader, when I bought a book on Lord Krishna during the visit/book exhibition by ISKCON at our “Sri Cauvery School”, Mysore. The book had a dark pink cover with a cute photo of Lord Krishna on it. I fell in instant love with that book from the day I got it. When I started reading it, I didn’t rush to read the book like a novel. Rather, I was reading one chapter at a time slowly, like how we eat our favorite dish or sweet - one small bite at a time. The only worry I had while reading the book was - I will be done reading the book sooner or later… what to do after that?

This book was actually my second unforgettable Krishna Experience. The first one happened way back  when I was still in middle school (somewhere between 6th to 7th grade). Shri Ramananda Sagar’s “SRI KRISHNA '' serial was being telecast on National Channel every Sunday 9am. I still remember the first scene(photo) in that title song - Lord Krishna in His Shesha Shayana position (Sleeping on Serpent bed with Hand supporting the head). Such was my enthusiasm to watch that Serial that I sat in front of TV at the right time, making sure not to miss even the Title song (which was my favorite).

I have created another blog post before this, in which I narrated my Krishna experience that happened in recent times during Janmashtami of 2020 (Sharvari Samvatsara). In that post I tried to put down the logic behind deciding the Krishna Janmashtami date every year. I gained that knowledge from a very popular, humble and very renowned scholar who had mastered vedanta and had excellent knowledge of Sanskrit, Kannada & Tulu. A Guru who everyone lovingly referred to by his birthplace name. Yes, I’m talking about Vidya Vachaspati Shri. Bannanje Govindacharya. This Post is dedicated to him. Lord Krishna gave me my recent Krishna experiences through this Guru.

Lord Krishna says in Geeta that he ensures the survival and propagation of Spiritual knowledge by sending the Gyaanis & Gurus at the right interval. Several such esteemed devotees of the Lord have taken birth in the past and it will continue in future too. Shri Bannanje definitely belongs to that class of the Lord’s devotees. When the divine Swamiji of Udupi, Sri Vidyamanya Tirtharu himself bestowed the title of Vidya Vachaspati on his favorite disciple, one can imagine the depth of Knowledge that Sri Bannaje had gained from his devotion to Lord. He was certainly a walking encyclopedia. Though very late, I certainly don’t want to miss dedicating a post for this Guru of mine, who gave me Krishna experience in recent times, who illuminated the lamp of Krishna inside me, who made me a dasa of Sri Madhwacharya. I can go on… 

Lord Krishna helps the lesser mortals like us to come in contact with these Gurus & get enlightened spiritually. Purandara Dasaru has rightly said - “Gurugala Gulama aguva tanaka Doreyadanna Mukuti” - One cannot attain Moksha without becoming a slave of a spritual Guru. The very fact that Lord helped me to know about this Guru and listen to some of his discourses makes me so happy and sends a divine shiver down the spine. Thus I categorize this divine experience as Krishna experience (Just like the book, the TV serial and the Krishna Janmashtami experience of 2020).

I must say that i was his digital Shishya. I got to know about him from youtube and listened to his discourses via Youtube channel only. Over the past couple of years that I listened to his discourses over youtube, I would  list down a few unique qualities that I observed in him:

1. He never refers to any book during discourse. Whether it is Bhagavad Geeta or any Puranas, he has the relevant slokas on his tongue tip. Very rare to see any vidwans who come with no  book in hand for giving discourse.

2. Straight-on-the face talk. Doesn’t sugar coat anything to please anyone. Never mind calling a spade a spade, no matter who the person is. 

3. Blends science with Vedanta and explains the concepts of vedanta logically. Thus he was popular among all age groups. He never used to follow something just because “it is followed like this from the past”. Some interesting examples to quote:

1. “Can Females chant Vishnu Sahasranama?”
   Why? Females don’t have mouths? Please do not follow advice of someone who cannot give you a valid scientific reason.

2. “Can we chant Gayatri Mantra 12 thousand times daily?”
   Better to limit it to 2k-3k per day. Your body cannot withstand chanting it beyond that.
   (I recommend the readers to watch his discourse for more details on this)

4. Though he belongs to the Madhwa Brahmin community and has mastered the works of Sri Madhwacharya, he had profound knowledge on the works of other 2 great acharyas of south india - Sri Sankaracharya &  Sri Ramanujacharya.

5. He used to always come to discourses wearing Kurta and white Dhoti. He used to say that Vedanta is about removing the clothes that cover our Gnana. Why should one worry about the attire of the pancha bhautika body. 

Due to all these unique qualities in him, he attracted many youngsters to his discourses which helped them to get right knowledge about our ancient scriptures. He always used to say in discourses that Knowledge is important. Lack of knowledge is the root cause of misery and confusion among people. That is the reason why Lord Krishna gave the Geeta to this world and later incarnated as Veda vyasa to further simplify the knowledge contained in the sacred texts. One of the  favorite quotes of Acharya was ‘Iruva Sampattalla; Iruvina Arivu Sampattu”. Loosely translated, it means “Existence is not wealth; Awareness of existence is real wealth”. And the real awareness of existence comes from the knowledge.

For a person who has contributed so much to the spiritual world, this blog hardly tries to scratch the surface. What justice can a 2 page blog post give to such a towering personality who has delivered more 30,000 hrs of discourses (and many other un official discourses), has written several books, written screenplays and dialogues  for movies on acharyas and made many other contributions to the spiritual world.

I feel very fortunate and happy to tell anyone that I was also one of the several youngsters that got influenced through his discourses. After starting my spiritual journey by listening to acharya’s pravachanas, for more than a year or so, I listened to only his pravachana. It was only after a year that I slowly started listening to other Pravachana Vidwans. But Bannanje acharya holds a special place in my heart.

Such a great personality passed away on 13th of December 2020 creating a void in the world of Sanskrit and Vedanta Vidwans. When Rekha broke the news early in the morning on 14th of Dec, I felt a pain pass through the core of my soul. For 2 days, all I spoke about was only about him.  The sense of loss gripped me for a few days. But then I had one thing to console me - the treasure of his discourses available on youtube. Listening to his voice makes me feel that he has not left us. He is still around us imparting the knowledge of Vedanta. I read in the news that he was working on a book that reconciles the teaching of all the 3 great Acharyas on Bhagavad Geeta.  He had completed working till 8 chapters. His death leaves that book incomplete. I felt really bad about this. This work would have bridged the gap in knowledge among the following of the 3 acharyas and would have helped bring all of them closer and work as one community. 

I end this post with one small special note - just 2-3 weeks before the passing away of the Great Acharya, I had told Rekha that whenever we visit Udupi in future, it would be great if we come across Acharya there. I will definitely take blessings and photos with him!  Never imagined that this wish will remain unfulfilled.

Update: 13th Aug 2021: Though the wish of meeting Shri Bannanje Acharya was not filled, God didn't disappoint me. He gave me the opportunity to meet another favorite Guru of mine - Vidwan Shri Krishnaraja Kuthpudi at Udupi itself! How divine. I took his blessings and got a couple of photos with him.

SRI KRISHNASHTAMI

                                         सर्वकर्माणि मनसा संन्यस्यास्ते सुखं वशी |

नवद्वारे पुरे देही नैव कुर्वन्न कारयन् || 5.13||

The Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is living within the body of a living entity, is the controller of all living entities all over the universe. The body consists of nine gates: two eyes, two nostrils, two ears, one mouth, the anus and the genital. The living entity in his conditioned stage identifies himself with the body, but when he identifies himself with the Lord within himself, he becomes just as free as the Lord, even while in the body. Gita - chapter 5, Verse 13.

The beginning of new tradition:

This year (2020) - Sharvari nama samvatsara, Lord Krishna started a new tradition at our home- Celebration of Krishna Janmashtami at our home!! Yes, Lord himself made that sankalpa through us and helped us celebrate by doing his puja. 

Aug 11th, 2020 - Krishna Ashtami:

I cannot forget going from one store to another here gathering the required items for puja. All things were gathered, except the Idol of Sri Krishna. Though it was available in the store, I have vowed that I will buy it only from Udupi, when Lord gets me a chance to come there.

At the end, all went fine. Rekha sang bhajan, Jingu stayed put in her stroller throughout that 2 hrs of puja duration. It was my long time dream that we should do Puja at some festivals every year. Especially Krishna Janmashtami. We were so happy that the puja was finally done at our home.

Breaking the monotony of life and doing something new gives a fresh breath of air to life. Lord Krishna did just that to us by making us go through all of this.

Click to watch the bhajan video.

Miracle:

A week or so after Krishnashtami, I casually happened to tell Rekha- “Now that I was able to do puja by reading the mantra and following the rituals mentioned, I feel like I want to do it again soon. Next year seems so long away, I wish we got a chance to celebrate Janmashtami again very soon”

Now, comes the miracle part - Maybe a week later that I expressed my wish, the Lord made it come true! Yes, Janmashtami again in the same year!! 

Keep reading to learn how this miracle happened.

The Basics:

Before we go to the Miracle part, we need to have understanding of how the date is decided for Krishnashtami by different set of Krishna followers:

Krishnashtami (Lunar calendar):

Generally, Krishnashtami is celebrated on the 8th day (ashtami) of the 2nd Fortnight (Krishna Paksha/ Dark phase of moon) of Shravana Masa. Let's call this as General Krishnashtami for our convenience sake.

So we too celebrated the Lord’s Janmadin according to this tradition, which was on 11th of Aug, 2020. 

Krishna Jayanthi(Luni-Solar Calendar):

Krishna Jayanthi is different from Krishnashtami. There is a reason why we call it Krishna Jayanthi. Let’s see how they are determined.

1. Udupi Mutt and Guruvayoor temple follow the Luni-Solar calendar in determining Lord Krishna’s Janmadin. 

2. So they don’t fix the Birthday on the Lunar month of Shravana. Instead they consider the Solar Month(Rashi) - Simha Rashi. 

3. So Simha Rashi’s , 2nd fortnight’s (Krishna Paksha), Ashtami tithi  (8th day)  when there is Rohini Nakshatra during Moonrise time(midnight)- that day is Lord’s Janmadin. If the Rohini Nakshatra coincides with Moonrise time then it is very auspicious and thus called Krishna Jayanthi. 

4. In point#3 above, if Rohini Nakshatra is not there at Moon rise time (Mid Night) then it is not called Krisna Jayanthi. Instead it will be just called Krishnashtami. Let’s call this Udupi Krishnashtami to differentiate it from General Krishnashtami. 

So now we learnt 3 terms:

1. General Krishashtami

2. Krishna Jayanthi - Most Auspicious. Observe fasting on such years.

3. Udupi Krishnashtami - popularly called Rohini Ashtami

I will now explain the relationship between the General and Udupi Krishnashtami

1. Most of the years, Simha Rashi will coincide with Shravana Masa. So the General Krishnashtami date will be the same as the Udupi Krishnashtami date.

2. Very rarely though, the Simha Rashi will coincide with Bhadrapada Masa, which comes after Shravana Masa. On those years, the Udupi Krishnashtami date will be almost a month after General Krishnashtimi

3. The year 2020 was one such rare year and Udupi Krishnashtami date  was on Sept 20th!!

So What is the miracle here?

We were not at all aware of this tradition at Udupi mutt!! So a week later, after i expressed my desire to celebrate the next Krishnashtami soon,while watching some YouTube videos, I got to know that udupi mutt is celebrating Krishnashtami on Sept 20th! I was so confused. Naturally I turned towards Google to know the reason. And that is when I learnt about all of that I explained above.

My Joy knew no bounds. Lord Krishna got Krishnashtami Puja done from us for the first time ever. And that too twice. I can’t express it here - To wish for something divine like doing Puja of Lord and Lord granting that wish immediately...

Sep 20th, 2020 - Krishna Jayanthi:

So on the day of Krishna Jayanthi, We decided to follow some of the rituals that we had skipped last time.

• Fasted till the Puja is over at night

• Did the Arghya Pradana (the main part of the Puja) right at the moonrise time at night. For us in Lombard, USA, that was 11pm at night and there was Rohini Nakshatra. So it was Krishna Jayanthi.

• Each adult at home did Arghya Pradana and not just me. Mom did it as well, at Mysore.

• We watched the Live telecast of the main puja at Udupi Mutt.

At the end, the sense of accomplishment was higher compared to the last month. There were lots of reason - the awareness that Lord fulfilled the wish immediately, Lord Narasimha had come in my dream the early morning, the first ever experience of fasting, Arghya pradana right at moonrise time, Jingi staying awake all the way till we completed the Puja… so many.

At times, while writing this blog, thoughts used to cross my mind as whether it is required to write this beautiful experience in a blog when it is already etched deeply in my memory. But then I realised that though I may not forget this miracle, chances are that I may forget the other associated events. So to not take any chances, I finally decided to roll out my memory in digital format. And while writing this, I had the same kind of Joy and happiness that I had experienced while going through the actual event.

I hope you enjoyed reading this article as well as the knowledge of determining Krishnashtami/Krishna Jayanthi date. I sincerely thank Vidwan Sri Bannanje Govindacharya, who explained that so beautifully in a discourse. Our rituals are so rich and based on so much science and logic. Let’s do our bit to learn, understand and follow our ancient culture. 

I bow down with heartful respects to the only supreme Lord - Sriman Narayana - For making me put down this blog to remember this beautiful miracle forever.

Happy New Year - Lets be part of the change

Oh, look at that guy, no manners. Jumped the queue. Indians are like this. Can’t help....

We come across this ranting at least once in a day. Don’t we? We take rules for granted, law for granted. We misuse the freedom and impose a new rule on ourselves. We like to litter around. We like to do whatever it takes to make our lives easy, notwithstanding if it means breaking the rule or causing nuisance to others.

I agree with everything. If we closely look at it, we can bifurcate this social problem into two parts. Part 1 involves us, the aam admi who can do his bit to help keep up the cleanliness, law and order in the system. This I can say constitutes 60% of the pie. The rest of the responsibility falls on the head of govt machinery – the babus and politicians.

Complying with law is something the basics what an aam admi can do to do his bit. When PM asks to maintain cleanliness, let’s participate in that. When there is sign to follow the lane rules, let’s do that honestly. If we see no smoking board, let’s not smoke. Is that so difficult?

Yes, some things are difficult. Ex. The traffic. We do all sorts of jugaad to reach to destination. The infrastructure is really pathetic to cater to the demand. Our city planning was not future oriented. I don’t know the solution, neither I wanted to dedicate this post for that. But just wanted to quote an example.

But things which are possible, let’s do it. “Swach Bharath”mission is simplest one to start with I believe. If we take one after the other, I think we can address the issues systematically. If we are responsive, show responsibility, take part in democracy machinery, things may start working. That is what Our PM believes too. That is why we have so many options to knock on the govt’s door created these days.

And let me tell here that western countries are no exception to breaking rules. I have seen some insane guy inserting himself into long q in London Airport. People do throw cigar stubs anywhere they wish in US. You don’t have restriction on smoking in public area in US (in India it has to yet see a strict implementation. But thankfully people are aware of their rights and I’ve seen instances where folks have chided law breakers), a potential health hazard that has not yet alerted the administration here.

The point is very simple. Abiding by rules is really not so difficult. We do it inside our homes. It’s time we follow the same outside too. Any change is difficult at beginning and becomes part of life in no time when we start following. The same has happened in US. They have been doing it from many generations there. Once we start the habit in India then, it becomes practice here too. Ranting at rule breakers and degrading ourselves by comparing with "Rule-abiding"
firangis is not a solution. Let’s be part of Modi’s dream. Let’s begin the change.

Travelogue 2

In the order of Latest-first (going back in order, w.r.t the latest trip), this is the 2nd tour that I went before my Kerala Trip(for which I've written a separate post ,the first part of the Travelogue series). Lord of Guruvayoor gave us chance to have his darshan in this tour. This tour has a nice prologue to be talked about.

I had been to a marriage of my engineering classmate where I met my Mechanical Branch classmates after a gap of 7 years! Ride down the memory lane kick-started and continued during dinner too where I was sitting beside this Adarsh (if I get a chance, I shall blog about this wonderful guy sometime) who was one among top 10 scorers of our batch. I got to know that he along with a bunch of machas (guys) do climb up the stairs of the Chamundi hills every Saturday early morning! Though I excitedly committed to join the group for this weekly-trek without fail, so far I’ve been able to make it only once. During the climb they were refining a tour plan which they had started to conceive some couples of weeks back. Ok, there is another coincidence as well. I had applied for leave on 25^th and 28^th of July 2014 to make it a long weekend as 29^th was marked as public holiday in our company. I sometimes do that – applying leave in advance, so that I can plan something suitably later. This time though, I didn’t have to plan as well. All I did was packing the luggage a day before the trip.

Trip route summary: Kanyakumari – Suchindram (aka suseendram) – Trivandrum – Guruvayoor

No. Of Days: 3 Days 2 Nights

Mode of Travel: Train and Bus.

This was a unique trip in many ways. The machas had planned this trip with one main aim – to take the parents along. There were 7 machas in the group. Some had got both parents, some only one and some came sans parents. Some even got their cousins, siblings and friends (I got my friend Manoj pothkar apart from my mom). The team size kept on adding up on daily basis. This prompted the core committee to say “Done. No more seats” when finally the numbers touched the 20-mark.

Since the planning was done perfectly well before, there were not any hiccups in the trip. Rooms for stay were booked at Kanyakumari for night#1 and at Guruvayoor for night#2. Train tickets too were booked well in advance.

Trip was fairly simple. Day 1 Saturday we reached Nagercoil (train will not go to Kanyakumari as marketed by Railways. Nagercoil is the last stop) early morning by train from Bangalore. We then reached Kanyakumari by hiring 2 taxis. The day was spent at Kanyakumari. Since it was Amavaysa that day, we took bath in the ocean as it is considered very auspicious. We then took Darshan of Kanyakumari Devi at the temple near the beach and then came back to hotel. After having bath and lunch we left for Rock Memorial-Thiruvallavur statue islands. After coming back in evening, we went to Suchindram by hiring a mini bus. Spent good amount of time there. The temple is famous for the tall status of Lord Hanuman. This temple is very huge and has temples dedicated to many Gods and goddess. Out of them, the Brahma-Vishnu-Maheshwar god is very beautiful.  We had the Dinner at a hotel beside the temple and came back to Kanyakumari.

Day2 Sunday: Reached Trivandrum, capital city of Kerala by train from Nagercoil. Visited the Huge AnantaPadmanabhaSwamy Temple. As it was Sunday, there was a bit of crowd. Otherwise, we were told that there won’t be any rush or queues. Security is too tight. Male devotees should compulsorily wear Dhotis. No shirt/banians. Not even a towel should be there on top! Needless to say that mobiles and other electronic gadgets too will not be let to accompany with you inside. Female devotees should be in sarees. If wearing any other dress, they should wrap a dhoti kind of material just like how males wear the dhotis. No purse or baggage allowed. There will be lunch available for good amount of time. But you should wash the plates yourself afterwards. Don’t think you can just hold it under the tap water and put it back. There will be a quality supervisor sitting who collects the plate and checks it for cleanliness. If he finds it not clean, you need to go back and wash it again!

3 of my friends left for Bangalore from here by 4pm train. The rest of us travelled towards the abode of Supreme head of God – Lord Krishna. The Guruvayoor. The Jan Shatabdi express goes up to Thrissur. From here, we travelled by a local private bus to Guruvayoor which is 25KM from Thrissur. It was late night by the time we reached. We hardly slept for 2-3 hours. The next day being public holiday, we were warned by the Temple Guest house staff to expect serpentine queue. In worst case, we will have to spend the whole day in queue they said.

Day3 Monday: Not to take any chances, we resolved to make it to the queue by 4 am. Though we indeed reached there by that time, the queue had already grown by significant length but thankfully not as big as to consume the whole day. When we had almost come near the gate, doors were closed for an hour for the puja purpose (around 6-7am).  Once it opened the queue movement pace picked up and we had the darshan of lord by almost one hour.

The team split into 2 halves. One half travelled towards Bangalore by 10.30AM train (which they were able to catch by god’s grace, given the delay in Darshan). The other half, which included me, travelled towards Mysore by bus. We first travelled till Calicut from Guruvayoor. It was around 2pm when we reached Calicut, where we had the lunch at Saravan Bhavan near Bus stand(suspect it to be original saravana bhavan hotel. But nevertheless the food was good). Post lunch, we got direct bus (Kerala RTC) to Mysore from here.

Reached Mysore @9PM. I guess the blore group also reached their destination around same time. Everyone was happy with the planning and success of the trip. And as I say always, lord himself called all of us to his abode to give us blessings. Hari OM Tatsat.

 

Khushboo Gujarat Ki - Mother of all Tours

You may think that you have come here for a trip, but let me tell you that it is because god gave you the permission to visit his home. That’s the reason why you are all here today, taking the blessings from lord himself. – as said by a pandit at Bhet Dwaraka.

Every strand of hair on my two hands was standing straight as I heard those words. The fact that the tour was successful stands testimonial to what the pandit said above and I strongly believe that anyone who reads this post will also agree to that.

It all started when the news about upcoming long weekend – the first weekend of month of October 2014, was floating around in office. The part of my brain that takes care of weekend/holiday planning got into action and started gathering the data –

1. No. Of holidays
2. Places being covered so far.
3.  what place comes next in priority
4.  who all may join

Let me discuss only point#3, rest being personal stuff which no reader of my blog will be interested in. In my Kanyakumari tour (I will shortly put a post on that), Manoj had made one point that he wants to explore more of North India from now since it is easy to do so when we are still young and can afford some extended leaves in office. This statement had settled down in some corner of my brain. When my brain kick-started planning, this remark came up for processing and I thought I should give it a try. But where north? Mumbai is the max point in north I’ve been to, on my own planning (have been to Delhi with parents when I was kid). Amitabh bachan surely is most charismatic person. His “Khushboo Gujarat ki”ad immediately flashed on my mind. Can I make it to Gujarat?? Seemed a bit difficult. But as pandit said, what happened in the last 2 weeks of August (I had smelled the October long weekend only in mid aug) still seems to be miracle for me. Lot of sleepless nights went into the planning. Let me present a short and crisp version of it –

1. No. Of days of General holiday = 2 + 2(weekend) = 4 days – 2^nd to 5^th of October 2014
2. No. Of days of leaves applied = 4 days – 30^th of sept and 6^th to 8^th of October 2014
3. Total holidays at disposal = 8 days.
4. Onward journey –
   1. 30^th of sept night – Mysore to Mangalore
   2. 1^st of Oct 1pm – Mangalore to Mumbai.
   3. 2^nd Oct 2pm – Mumbai to Ahmedabad (reached @ 9 PM)
5. Return Journey –
   1. 7^th Oct mrng 1a.m – Ahmedabad to Mumbai
   2. 7^th Oct 5 PM – Mumbai to Mangalore
   3. 8^th Oct – Mangalore to Mysore

I had to split the journey in the above fashion just because there were no tickets available for direct trains. I stayed at my relative’s place in Mumbai and at Guest house of LIC in Mangalore during transit. The above travel iternary itself is the first proof of how God made it possible for us to visit him. A few months before, I had fractured my Left toe finger due to some injury (yet to recover from it). There was a terrible pain when I had reached Mumbai on 1^st Oct. But thanks to my family doc, I remembered one of the drug he had prescribed in case of severe pain. It worked for me.  Point #5b above – a reason for even an atheist to believe in god. I've underlined it since I've lot of memories with this journey. A goods train which had left before ours in the same route (not sure how long before) had got derailed! Thus our train was diverted to some other route and thus we passed thru Dudhsagar falls in Goa and all that before we reached Mangalore with full 7 hours delay!! Not just this. Another incidence happened related to this journey itself which I don’t want to write here as I want to forget it.

 

Coming back to the tour, I had booked the package tour – Saurashtra Darshan, of Gujarat tourism (govt). Details –

1. 4 days 3 nights – 3^rd Oct 2014 to 6^th October
2. 7500 INR per head
3. Package includes Guide, AC bus and AC Accommodation.
4. Imp places covered – Rajkot, Jamnagar,Porbandar,Dwarka,Nageswar,Somnath,Virpur.

I was writing down all the information about each day in my phone so that I don’t forget anything when I reach home. I will paste them as it is here (without editing the grammar also). The package was decent enough. The accommodation was pretty good as well as the bus. Guide was very helpful and gave good info about many things. Since it was a long weekend, the bus was fully booked. The trip started from Ahmedabad (in front of Sabarmati ashram, 6 am) and also ended at same place @ 8pm.

Before I paste the daily details let me thank the Almighty for making this tour possible without any hardships – Hari OM Tatsat.

 

Day1
Bf at Limdi,surendranagar dist. 8.30am. Start of saurashtra.
About guj:
Ahmedabad aka amdavad aka karnavati nagari was part of Mumbai till 1960.

Saurashtra also known as kathiawad. Ruled by krishna and ashoka. Holy part of guj.

Porbandar is famous for sudama and gandhi.

Kutch is divided into two. Greater rann of Kutch-white desert which looks like moon at night. Post monsoon when water dries sand looks like salt.
Little rann of Kutch-where wild ass is found.
Over1600 km of coastal line with 42 ports.kandla is major.
Ajanta clocks,reliance petrochemical ind,nano suzuki honda and several major industry. Cotton and peanut major crops.
Total 13airports highest in India.
2 jyotirling and one dham out of 4.
Only one hill station. Associated with lord ram vanvas.
Biggest network of roads. Even on borders.
Statue of unity is getting constructed near sardar vp dam which generates elec and provide water for agri.

When ahmed shah went in search of place to build new capital,he saw a rabbit threatening dog near sabarmati river. Decided to build city there after admiring power of sabarmati.
Gnagar is a newly formed capital of guj. Well planned and lots of greenery.

11.30 am Rajkot- alfred high school bldg. Rajkumar college.  Rk ashram.

1 pm lunch.

3.30 pm jamnagar. Darshan of lord hanuman at bal hanuman mandir where ram dhun (bhajan) is played by ppl non stop since 1964 thus entering Guinness book.
Raja jam ranjit singh famous for introducing cricket to india ruled

4.30 pm passed by reliance petrochemical refineries and then essar oil refinery

 7pm halt at Porbandar. Had darshan at sudama temple and dinner at nilesh parota house. Couldn't make it to chowpatty and khadi bandar.

End of day 1.

Day 2:

 Started from hotel at 7.30am. Scores of ppl soaked in pale red color were going towards Porbandar in all sorts of vehicles.

 

8.30 am- had darshan at harshad matha temple. Huge rush. Had bf and left at 9am.

1.30 pm finished darshan at bhet dwaraka. Place where sudama met lord krishna with a handful of beaten rice. Considered as home of lord. The other dwaraka which we say main one is actually office of lord known as gomati dwaraka. Lord's idol is 5000 years old and has golden pillars around. Temple outer structure is made of pale pink granite with beautiful carving which depicts life of lord Krishna. Bhet dwaraka is located on an island and one needs to take boat to reach there. Inaccessible during monsoon due to heavy waves. Place will be taken out of list by tourism dept from 15th July to 15th October. Luckily by Lord's grace we were able to get the darshan on this day of 4th October. Okha port- where we catch boat to go to bhet dwaraka is last stop of western railway.

 Left for nageshwar jyotirling from here.

 3pm - left nageshwar after having darshan. Lots of ppl due to holiday.

 Didn't had lunch yet.

 3pm - finally lunched at dwaraka.

 4.30 pm- Rukmini temple.

 5.30 pm - checked into hotel and left for night arati darshan at temple.

10.30 pm- back to hotel. A sense of fulfillment flowing inside having seen the lord during aarati. Guide explained everything beautiful. Had dinner too. A local lassi shop was serving tasty lassi at 15rs. I had 2.

End of day 2

Day 3 :

 Checked out of hotel @ 6am.

8.30am reached Porbandar. Visited kirti mandir-Gandhi's birth place. His home is maintained as is without any alteration. 3floor bldg with 19 rooms. Another bldg has been constructed newly, connected with home, for museum. Together the place is called as kirti mandir. Ironically,surrounding place is very dirty as cattle & dogs have made roads as their loo and paan spitting bins by humans.

10.30 am - crossed madhavpur town. This s the place where lord Krishna had married Rukmini. Goddess Rukmini is from a village near Amaravati in maharashtra(called as Vidharbha back then).when her parents decided to marry her off to Shishupal,she writes a letter to lord to rescue her. Lord kidnaps her and brings her to dwaraka where he marries her at madhavpur.

 Lord then vists his guru Durvasa rishi for blessing and asks him to come to dwaraka for function (I guess).sage asks lord to take him in a cart pulled by the couple as he is a sage with no carts or horses to travel. Lord agrees. On the way Rukmini mata feels thirsty and requests lord to provide water. Lord just knocks the ground with toe and water springs out. Both of them quench their thirst but forget to offer water to sage. Out of anger the sage cursed them that they will live separate for 12yrs,dwaraka will not have sweet water for drinking and their temple shall get constructed at far from each other. That's why goddess Rukmini temple is located at outskirts while Lord's temple is inside.(We visited Rukmini temple on day 2) 

12.10 pm- crossed chorwad - birth place of Dhirubhai Ambani.
Moving towards Bhalka Teerth. Bhalka is arrow. This is the place where lord was shot by an arrow fired by hunter.
As per research,lord was born on midnight od 21st June 3228 B.C and lived till 2pm of 18th feb 3102 B.C. 125 years.  At the time of mahabharath he was 89 years old.
Lord was cursed by kunti that like the way he destroyed kuru clan,yadavs clan will also meet its end  36 years after the war.
Yadavs were super knowledge ppl.once while playing,a group of children tried to test the power of a sage who was passing by. They made a boy look like a girl by magical power and asked the sage whether she gives birth to a boy or girl. The sage cursed them that he'll not give birth to anybody but will be responsible for extinction of yadavs by one iron piece. So in order to ensure safety of the clan yadavs throw all iron things into sea except for one small piece which was similar to arrow head. This gets into a fish which finally falls into the lap of the hunter who uses it to shoot lord.
When the hunter cries in grief realising his mistake,lord consoles hin by telling him about their previous births. Hunter-Vali and Lord Krishna-as lord Rama. When Vali asked Rama why he killed from hiding when the fight was going on between him and his brother sugreeva, lord Rama is believed to have consoled him by saying that. He (Rama)will be killed in his next avatar by vali.

1.30 pm bhalka Teerth.

 2 pm -Geetha mandir- This is the place where lord balaram got back into his real form of Sesh Nag and went back to patal (under the ground).

 Triveni - Sangam (confluence) of harini (or hiranya not sure) Saswati as gupta gamini (flowing under the ground) and one more river.

 Many ppl believe that sarswati river has dried up. But a lot of research has now supported what majority of hindus believe-flowing under the ground. There is a interesting story behind thus belief. When Lord Ganapathi was writing Mahabharath as per the oral recital by Lord Vedavyas beside the River Sarswati, lord Ganapathi was loosing concentration due to the flowing sound of river. Thus upon request by lord Ganapathi,lord Vedavyas asked river for help and she immediately agreed and started to flow under the ground. This is the river beside which Goud Saraswat Brahmins used to live long time ago. I will cover this story in another post.

 Somnath - The another major attention of tour. There are 2 temples here now. New one built by Sardar Vallabhai Patel which is just marvellous and the old one built by Rani ahalya devi some 800years ago.

 There was this great King called Daksha who had 27 daughters had married them all to Lord Moon. Moon aka Chandra Devata used ti love Rohini out of his 27 wives. Daksha cursed him to become ugly when Chandra Devata didn't mend his way even after request by Daksha. Thus having realised his folly Of Being pride about his beauty,Chandra Devata decided to do penance to invoke blessings of lord Shiva. When Lord shiva appears,he says that he can't nullify the curse but can relax it to a extent. Thus Chandra Devata will become bright for 15 days and get dull for 15 days in a month. Som =Moon and Nath = Shiva. This place is also known as Prabhas Pathan and is the most holiest and first Jyotirling.

 The original temple which was looted more than 17times was believed to have the Jyotirling floating in air a little above the ground which was destroyed and plundered by Muslim invader ghazni. So much so that nothing remained in its place.

 One night, Rani Ahalya Devi got a dream that she should get a spot near the plundered site excavated and build a temple with the Ling idol that she will find during excavations. This temple which is more than 800 years old is now known as old temple after the Iron Man of India,the first home minister of independent India,built the new temple in the original spot.

 Security is very stringent and one cannot even wear a belt while entering. Free cloakroom facilities are provided to deposit our stuffs. The chowpatty behind the temple is excellent and provides a magnificent view of sea. Shri Patel's statue is placed right in front of the temple maha dwar. 

 5pm- pit stop at roadside tea stop. Proceeding towards Junagad now.

7.30 pm checked into Toran hotel at Junagad. Toran is chain of hotels maintained by Gujarat  tourism dept. Avg cost is 2000. Hotel is pretty old but decent and well maintained. Only problem I found is lack of lift facility. The other 2 nights we were made to stay in pvt hotels. They were also good. Avg cost in those hotels were 1500 to 2000.

 Food is not included in the package. Hence we had to go out on our for dinner. But rhe Toran hotel at Junagad is located at sone corner with no street lights on rhe roads outside. So here they arranged for food in hotel itself.

End of day 3.

Day 4 - Final day

8am -checked out of hotel.

Junagad celebrates independence day on 9th of November. It was on this day of year 1947 that the last nawab of Junagad escaped to Pakistan after a stern warning by Sardar Vallabhai Patel to stop his tricks to add Junagad to pak. Thus this place got it's independence 85 days after india got.

 The state of Junagad was supposed to be 2nd prosperous after state of Baroda. This place is famous for Kesar mango. Also the most hily hill - Ginar parvat is located here. There are 4 Tirthadham of jains located atop this hill and also it's believed that lot of holy Sadhu do their penance here. 10k steps-one needs to take to reach top. State's effort to get a ropeway built is met with stern protest by Jain folks.

 There is a fort here inside which Junagad was located earlier before the nawabs developed outer city. This fort is built in 11th century and still very strong. There was a queen named Ranak devi whi used to live here once and was famous for her beauty. A raja of gujarat wanted to take her away with him but failed to enter the fort and waited outside for 12yrs.

9.30am - reached Radha Damodar temple. There is a cave here where lord Krishna got Rakshas Kalyavan killed. When Lord was coming from Mathura,Kalyavan followed hum thinking that the Lord is running being afraid of him. Lord cannot kill him directly due to some reason which I'm not clear. Thus he gets him to this cave by trick. A king who had renounced the world was sleeping Here and gets woken up by this demon. The demon gets burnt up when the King's sight falls on him. The king had a boon rhat whoever disturbs him from sleep would die by getting burnt up.

 10am - reached Mrigi kund(pond). A temple similar to one atop Girinar hills is constructed here for benefit of those who can't climb the hills. During Mahashivrathri highly supernatural sadhus who do penance in hills come here to take bath in pond and it is believed that on an avg 1 sadhu out of 100 will not come out. He will disappear or attain moksh. More than 12 lakh ppl gather here on that day.

11am- reached Virpur. This small town 1km off highway is famous for Jalaram Bapu temple.

Jalaram Bapu was born on 9th of November 1799 and was famous for generosity. Once a sadhu came to his house and told him that he has heard a lot about him and wants to know whether he will fulfill his wish too? Bapu agreed and the sadhu asked give him his wife. Bapu was a little sad and discussed the matter with his wife. His wife thinks for a while and tells him that she doesn't want to tarnish his name and thus will go with the sadhu.

 The sadhu rhen leaves the place along with Bapu's wife and upon reaching outskirts of the place hands over a danda and jholi (bag) to her and asks her to go back to home by saying that they don't have to beg and eat anymore.

 When she comes back and narrates the story to her husband, Bapu immediately understands that the sadhu is no ordinary person but lord Rama himself In disguise. Bapu being a big follower if lord Rama immediately runs to the spot where his wife had left him but doesn't find anyone there. Upon reaching home he gets a pleasant surprise. A swayambhu (self evolved) idol of Lord Hanuman would be there at the spot where they had left the bag and Danda.

In the temple you can see the danda and Jholi as well as real photo of Bapu taken by some londoner.

Food is available 24hrs all day and not a single rupee is accepted as donation here now since already so many people have done so much of donation.

We did sime saree shopping here and then left for lunch.

1.30 pm - had lunch at Toran hotel on highway and started to ahmedabad where the tour will end officially.

7pm - back to Toran hitek opposite Sabarmati Ashram Ahmedabad. Tour ends here officially. Everyone was overcome with emotions. Thanks to gujarat tourism.