Journey to Shirdi

A mild pain at the tip of the nose, my lips tend to curve and the tear glands finally yield under pressure. This was how felt when I had the first glimpse of Sai Baba at Shirdi.

My parents had wished to visit Shirdi over the last two decades but couldn’t make it. They say its God’s will. This is something I don’t understand and would never argue with my parents.

I am a believer in God. But, unlike our family circle, prayers and hymns are alien to me. So, my motivation to visit Shirdi was driven more by my parent’s wish than my own.

My brother and myself did all the planning. This was a trip of so many ‘firsts’. Made my first air travel. Between Bangalore and Pune. Pune to Shirdi… bus was at 12:30 a.m. So once I boarded the bus, I don’t know what transpired for the next 5hrs.

Reached Shirdi on a Sunday morning. Most hotels read House full and the pricing was exorbitant (as expected). Finally we got a room close to Dwarkamai for Rs.1200 ! It was really pathetic.

Sunday is not really a good time to be at shirdi, it is over crowded. So dropped plans of visitng the samadhi mandir. The shirdi temple is one big complex now. The Dwarkamai, Chavadi, Lendi bagh and other places are in and around the temple complex. We visited all these places on the first day.

We got a lot of help from Mr.Vichu Iyer, Sai Madras Hotel. He pointed us to “Dwaravati Bakthanivas”. It is run by the Sai Sansthan Trust itself. We got the rooms there on Monday. The price was Rs.550/day for 4 people. The hygiene was excellent as well.

We went to visit the samadhi mandir on Monday, early in the morning. Stood in the queue for 1Hr and after the darshan went again for another darshan. It was really heart filling. Another good aspect was, there was only one single queue; I mean, there was no economy class and business class queues in here.

Another thing was the dogs. You could find dogs roaming inside the temple, they were well fed, clean and very social too

Shanisingnapur… Its a almost 70km journey from Shirdi. Cars ply to this place, they charge you Rs.70/head to and fro. They will take you to there and will ‘command’ you to take bath, rent a dhoti and buy ‘puja’ stuffs. Beware, they are cheats. Before gettng into their car better tell them that you won’t buy their stories. I read in web about this and paid no heed to their flimsy rituals.

If you wish to perform Abishekam, you need to bath and come in dhoti. That too, I am not sure, better check with the security office. But, don’t listen to the car driver.

So Tuesday morning was spent in visiting Shanisingapur. We had a darshan of Baba again in the evening. I felt very content.

Need to mention the Bhojanalaya. The complex could serve thousands in one sitting. Well maintained. And the charge is Rs.6/adult. Its a bit far from the temple.

We had the flight from Pune to Bangalore in the evening so left shirdi by 8:45am. The Prasanna tours vehicle…. this was the worst part of the trip. The bus actually left Shirdi only 9:30am. Till then … sigh… 6hrs of travel for a distance of 180km. The road and the bus were horrible but it was much better when compared to the driver’s attitude.

At the end, I felt fortunate enough to have visited Shirdi. In my parents’ words, it was Gods’ will.

Sairam Rajaram.