No Disrespect but what a sham!

Just came back from a trip to Tirupati Balaji and Golden Temple,Vellore. Original plan was just to meet my family in Tirupati, take Darshan and come back. But when I reach Tirupati my parents tell me that we are first going to Vellore and then we have Darshan at night. 

So we started for Vellore at noon. It was arnound 130 kms from Tirupati. I took us 4 hours to reach the place due the beautiful infrastructure provided by our government. We reached there at around 4:30 pm. As I entered the Temple, I saw a board saying "Divya Darshan Rs 100/-". I go to counter to inquire about this Divya Darshan. The guy told me," Divya Darshan in  2 hours and Normal Darshan 3 hours". I realize TIME IS MONEY. I also asked him if there were any other difference between the two. He says Divya Darshan is nearer to the idol than the Normal Darshan. I din't understand what this meant. I decide to go for the Divya Darshan. So I take 4 tickets and enter the Temple. They say the temple is constructed in the shape of a Kundli. So it has eight corners and a centre point where the idol is placed. Basically we started from one point covered the other seven points. The temple is more like a resort. Located in the middle of mountains, beautiful landscaping, wonderful wonderful garden and a lake. You get to enjoy all this as you move from one corner to the other. After a 45 mins walk we reach the idol. The idol is placed in a temple made of gold. Again, they say it took 256 quintals of gold to make it. The temple is really marvelous. When I was taking Darshan I just decide to take a look around. To my surprise I found there were around 100 people standing behind a rope. Probably at a distance of 20 feet from where I was standing. I realized that these must be the guys who opted for the Normal Darshan. I could not resist grinning.

The journey back to Tirupati was quite normal. It started to rain cats and dogs as we had just started back. Our cars' headlights were a bit damaged and were not bright enough. As the journey progressed we came to know that our driver was not much experienced. He rammed the car on a divider and blamed it to bad light and heavy rains. We also saw a car just ahead lose its balance and go off the road. Apart from these, the journey was fun.
I reached Tirupati by midnight. I had got a special pass which allowed me and my Dad to sit in the Pooja for a whole 30 mins. The Pooja was supposed to start at 4 a.m. but we had to start at 1:30 am to get to the Pooja on time. You know, the usually checking like the one we have the airports. 
Allow me to enlighten on how I got to go for this Pooja.There was this guy who had donated 10 lacs INR to the Temple. So every year he gets to sit in one of the Poojas along with five other members. The names of these members have to be submitted when you make are making the pass (i.e. at the time of donation). This guy respects my dad a lot and as a token of respect he invited two of our family menbers to join him for the Pooja. Before entering the main temple there was a cross check of who is who and they asked us for photo-identity proofs. This was meant to allow only the CHOSEN people to enter the temple. We somehow convinced the guy that we din't know about this and so we do not have any photo-identity proofs. Me and my dad were assigned fake names and this allowed us to sit for the Pooja. This was the first time I had used a fake identity and what a place to start off with !
I reached the main temple by 3:30 a.m. and waited patiently for the Pooja to start. So me along with around 30 other privileged guys are in a room very near to the Lord's idol. The feeling was out of the world,seriously. I could see more than 200 guys (this was what I could see) standing at 4 a.m. in the morning just to take a glimpse at the Lord. Everyone chanting the Lord's name. Govinda..Govinda..Venkatramana Govinda ! The Pooja lasted for 30 odd minutes. After I made my wishes, I turned around. Again I saw the same thing. Hundreds of people were standing behind a rope (around 35 feet from where I was sitting). But this time it was even more horrible. These guys were being pushed after they barely got to see the Lord's idol. Later I came to know that these were the people who had VIP Darshan pass. I could not even imagine what normal darshan was in here.
After the Pooja was over and I came out, I saw that the Pundit who had performed the Pooja was standing right outside the door and gesturing for Dakshina. On giving him the Dakshina, I got some Tulsi leaves which I assumed were offered to the Lord in the Pooja. And I thought there were some things which money could not buy.
The next day I had to purchase the famous Tirupati Laddoos. For these, first you need to get in queue for about an hour to purchase a Ticket. Then you need to get in a queue for a Polythene bag without which you can not get you Laddoos. And yes, the bags were pretty cheap. Only Rs 2 /- a bag. And after this you have to stand in the queue to get your Laddoos. This takes around 2 hours if you are lucky.
It was quite a learning experience for me. Let me put my learnings in bullets

• God does not like everyone. God spends more time with rich people.
•  People with more money are closer to God.
• Best Business Idea: Open a Temple and somehow make it famous. Also make sure no one can get pics of your temple.
• Basic of how market works: Create a necessity and then sell it.

After spending a couple of days with my family I was pretty much content with my trip. It was quite a long time since all four of us (me, my dad, my mom and my younger brother) were together. I had a really great time.

Incidences

Well this is my first blog. Like most others I thought I'll start off my blog describing how I stumbled upon the idea of writing a blog and that I have been meaning to do this for a long time, but could not do it due to some or the other reason. But then I decided against it. In this post I am gonna narrate three very small, insignificant incidents. I don't know why, but these incidents have stuck in my mind and I can't seem to forget them. I don't know if these incidences have some deeper meaning that might have struck me or something like that. I seriously don't know. So I'll just be quoting these incidences blandly. Here they go:


Incident 1:
There is this guy in my building who takes care of all the trivial things like cleaning vehicles, ironing clothes,etc. He has a kid, around 12 years of age. He usually helps his father in his chores. 
Everyday, before going to office I shine my bike :-) . One day I forgot to bring the cloth I use to clean it. So I look around and I find this kid cleaning other vehicles. So I ask him if I could borrow his  cloth for a minute. He said that he'll clean the bike for me and started doing it without waiting for a reply. When he is done I give him Rs. 10. But he denied saying that he does it everyday. One more vehicle doesn't make any difference. I was surprised. He is quite young. He is poor. But he denied the money ! 
Ultimately I persuaded him to take the money saying that I am not giving this as alms. Its what he has earned. But  still his denial surprised me.


Incident 2:
I had parked my bike in basement of my office building. My office building is newly constructed. So it has a couple of leakages here and there. The place where I had parked my bike was right below one of these leakages. And it started to pour heavily that afternoon. In the evening,when I reached the basement, there was water everywhere around my bike.But surprisingly my bike was not drenched. I noticed that someone had moved my bike and because of this my bike was not all wet.I was happy to see this and I had to find out who did this.I looked around and found a security guard. I asked him if he had moved my bike. He said that he did it because it would have gotten all wet and covered with dirt. I thanked him and was reaching for my wallet. He understood my intentions and said that he is not allowed to take money from the employees.
I was again surprised. I mean this guy moved my bike even though it was not his duty. He should not have even bothered to look out for this. But he went out of his way and did it. And then he denied what I owed him !


Incident 3:
Every afternoon I go downstairs for a tea and a smoke. Usually some ladies will be sitting there selling tea, cigarettes, etc. That particular day, I approached a lady and asked her for tea. She got surprised and she dropped the cup of tea she was holding. It was then I noticed that the lady was actually a beggar and was having tea sitting under a tree. I felt real bad for what I had done. I apologized. She said that it was not my fault. I then bought her a cup of tea. She was not accepting the tea saying that it was not my fault that she dropped her cup. "Beta teri galti nahi thi !". I any how gave her the cup of tea and left without having a smoke.