My Lord!...Om namo Venkateshaya

My Lord!...Om namo Venkateshaya

This blog would be about my favorite place on earth, Tirumala.

Tirumala is a temple town located in so called verdant eastern ghats on the south east part of Andrapradesh. Its Famed throughout History as the abode of Narayana , an incarnation of MAHA VISHNU, one of the Trinities of hinduism. The idol based here, 9feet in height, is known as "Swayambhu" , or self originating without any human intervention. The Geography of this place is no less fascinating, it being based in a mountain range at an elevated position of 900 meters and in midst of tropical dry decidous forests. The entire mountains are made up of Pre cambrian Gniess and schists, which are almost as old as earliest rocks on earth! Historically , this place was known as the "Dakshinadwara" or the gates to the south, the south being the tamil heartland. Needless to say, this place has been intermittenly under control of pallavas, cholas, vijayanagara, mysore and marathas etc.

This temple has been the Spiritual home of millions of south indians throughout the centuries. Vijayanagara kings lavishly endowed this temple with priceless ornaments and built its most famous complex of the temple. Later on mysore and maratha kings followed in vijayanagara footsteps and never held back in showing thier affection and respect for my LORD sri venkateshwara.

Lately, every major leader and chief minister makes it a gesture to get blessings from my LORD before he endeavours on rocky political waters. Perhaps the most noteworthy amongst these was the immortal NTR, who is widely regarded as the greatest Andhrudu ever after Krishna deva raya himself.

He was the architect of present day tirumala. Ostensibly bouyant after single handedly routing indira's puppet congress in AP , he set up ridding tirumala of all its evils like corruption, pollution and inefficiency.

Mainly responsible for reviving the sanctity of the temple, he set up professionalizing the board of tirumala. He made , in a rather symbolic gesture, LORD himself as the PRESIDENT of the board and cheif minister being a humble vice president. Of course, there was the CEO of TTD who was a bureacrat , an IAS at that, to handle earthly chores of this abode.

He cleaned up the temple, rid the corrupt mahant like people manning the temple and improved the hygiene of the place. He was responsible for building the temple queue complex "vaikuntam" which is regarded as most efficient and sophisticated of its kind in entire world.

He set a precendent in which every Andhra CM is guaged by what he did to Tirupati and lord's abode. Lately YSR and Chandrababu naidu have been associated with certain developments with temple and its board.

Recently, Praja Rajyam, a party established by immensely popular actor chiranjeevi, was launched at the foothills of tirupati. Eventually , its leader chiranjeevi went on to contest from tirupati constituency, a wise move considering that he lost elsewhere.

Not to be left behind, industrialists and celebrities make it a point to visit this temple, often showering with gifts befitting thier stature. Vijay mallya gave a giant LCD,Ambani's a couple of crores and Amitabh bacchan promised a 30 crore rupee diamond studded staff.

Its this magical mix of Godly aura, political importance and geography that makes tirumala special.

Ages have passed and these mountains and the Diety residing in it have looked upon kings, princes , warlords , statesman and regular folk.

Tirumala Administration Now---- A Survey

No major Queuing system has been experimented with from the time of the great NTR. The LAGHU Darshan that is an excuse to shovel people out faster is a crime on poor people who seek to see god through the FREE darshan. It is no secret that so called "BREAK" Darshan for VIPS allow these elitos to view god from a couple of meters. TTD must explain how these are more privlelaged to see god.
Now with 300 rupee darshan, it has become a playground for cash rich businessman and VIPs who can pay per VIEW of the lord.

The pushing and shoving of piligrams as god is within sight is a major distraction not to mention a painful experience for the weak and old.

These bunch of scouts and hoodlums must be replaced by motorized Treadmills which move people just like in airports. So everyone, just standing still, will be able to view lord in all his sanctity and maybe much closer too.
It will definately be painless and faster than current scheme.
TTD must provide answers to make viewing lord a more effective experience, esp to the poor and the wretched. IT must justify itself as the administrator of what possibly is the world's richest shrine.

I cant help but notice the rampant urbanization and concrete-ization of Sacred hills.
TTD, once a model for ecologically sensitive development of a scalable religious shrine has suddenly lost its plot.
Trees which are hundreds of years old are being uprooted in the vicinity of temple to make way for massive concrete paths. HUGE assembling areas made of concrete are being built. These are ecologically disastrous because they don't allow for ground water percolation and will increase surface runoff.
TTD must have taken a more ecological step of maybe harvesting groundwater or providing SINK holes to help percolate ground water.
Concrete FLat ground may have been replaced with GRASS, which though expensive to maintain, will be in sync with nature and ultimately to GOD.

On the Human geography front, Shops, houses and complexes many hundreds of years old are being demolished and made way to construct VIP parking areas and like.
IT must be remembered that a geography of a place over time begins to get etched in people's memories and it becomes more than just a place.

For eg, many a poor people remember some shops behind the temple itself where there were shops offering newly married couples to pose before massive picture of LORD. My parents were one of these couples. Needless to say, in the name of scaling up, these places have been razed to ground and replaced by mindless expanse of VAST concrete FLAT GROUND.

Modernization and urbanization are much reviled words these days. Urban Geography is hardly something which tirumala should aspire for. It should remain a serene and Godly shrine in sync with nature and universe. My Lord Sri balaji should be allowed to live on his earthly abode for Kali yuga free from climate change, pollution noise and other vagaries associated with Urban topography.


There are ways and means to scale up without resorting to rampant Concretization. For one, they should start planting trees once again where they have been uprooted.

NATURE and GOD are one and same.