OMG! Save me!
We woke up very late that day, thanks to the ringing brass bells in a small temple nearby…Yes waking up even at six in the morning is considered late in holy places… and we hurriedly got fresh and changed ourselves to the temple attire – she wore a silk saree, I wore a white dhoti and an uttareeya, and so did the kids. The plan was to have darshan at the centuries-old and most famous Sri Mallikarjuna Temple that day.
All set…and we walked through the market streets leading to the temple. The place was filled with scents of burning oil lamps. Cotton wicks dipped in various kinds of oils, especially sesame oil or ghee, when lit, produce strangely pungent but spiritually-uplifting smell. The whole place was smoky – the market surrounding the temple, the square at the entrances, the road leading us to the main gate – every nook and corner. We carefully trekked barefoot through the crowded streets, maneuvering through oil spreads and lamps, forming a human chain, avoiding stepping on burnt cotton, minding all groups of people sitting just anywhere on the streets performing bhajans and kirtans. It was a huge crowd; perhaps a couple of lakhs, or even more. Did we come at the right time? We asked ourselves. We realized soon it was Karthika Antima Somawara. That was a special last Monday of the season, and very dedicated to Load Shiva, the main deity at this temple.
“Just in case if you want to make it in less than an hour or a half more…Ugh! you normally pay this in other places as well…so it’s your wish Sir”, an uninvited middleman apparently in his mid-thirties, dressed in dark blue trousers and a pale red wet towel on his shoulder, tried to convince us, just like he did for the newly-wed and seemingly clueless Rajasthani couple beside us. “..And…” he continued, pointing his fingers to the crowd inside the steel-barricaded, dark, no-entry-even-for-ants ticket-house, “…there are more than five thousand families waiting in the queue for special darshan…” Adding to his argument he also pointed towards an old lady lined up beside the electricity pole, and said that she had been there since 2 AM. Waving to the crowd with a lathi in his left arm and blowing his meekly-sounding whistle, he explained the Hindi couple in his Deccani accent, “tumey kya tho bhee taqleef nai baa, chalo phiphty kam deo…agar VIP ayega na...tho main kya bhee nai karsaktha…” But still…three hundred rupees per person was too much. He was not ready to yield any more, no concession to whomsoever. ‘khambe ke pass milunga…’, he said and left to a place a furlong away from us in the noisy crowd and joined a group of people near a pillar.
Deepa was anxious - if that guy can be trusted. Will he really make the darshan possible within one or two hours? I knew her problem, and that was my problem too. In fact we had a sleepless night before, thanks to the horrible two hundred kilometers forest-road drive.
I had only one way to respond to the situation – pay that fellow and enjoy rest of the day with kids at the water reservoir downhill. Was that decision Good or Bad, Smart or Ugly, Right or Wrong, Lawful or Unlawful, Reactive or Responsive, Careful or Careless, Corrupt or Compromising, Controlled or Reckless… My mental deliberation and contemplation during that hour were all subdued, mostly by the fact that it was already very hot and sunny, and we had no place to stand, and we were also tired, and had no fresh air to breathe. Every other reasoning seemed worthless. Though I never wish to do something like this, I had no other choice.
Although, that fellow made our way through long-winding and convoluted queues that stood more than a kilometer inside the premise, and put us close to about fifty steps to sanctum sanctorum, and we made it in an hour, something was still pestering me deep inside. I spent the rest of the day introspecting. But I gave up, and finally decided to leave it to Lord Mallikarjuna to decide.
At least I kept my family happy. That made my new year resolution – Not to take up unplanned trips anymore.