Well, it was a dynamic trip; we had no idea we had to go until a day prior to the trip (well, it was sort of kaccha-pakka). We decided that we should visit sai baba’s shrine & make ourselves purer.
Yeah! So, we decided to go on to Shirdi and then to Shani Shinghanapur, a place famous for the only Shani mandir.
We got up early (4:00 AM) in the morning, so that we can leave at 5 and avoid the heavy traffic. We did get ready by 5 but didn’t leave until 5:45. Reason: Some issue with songs CD and we didn’t wanna leave without being able to listen to nice songs during the journey. So, we rewrote the CD and we 4 guys left in Ravinder’s car at 5:45. Picked Cheeku’s sis and her roomie around 6 and started our journey. 6 people in i10; folks had to twist & turn to get to the best comfortable position. Moreover, Anki was in full utilization mode. “No space should be wasted”, he uttered. We all had sleep in our eyes but there was an excitement to visit these places (I was visiting these for the 1st time). It was dark when we left and weather was pleasant. Soon, 4 out of 6 people were asleep and I along with Ravinder were just staring at the roads.
The ghats came & went; Sun rose lighting up the sky. At the half way mark, we stopped by at a place to have breakfast (We were really hungry by then). By the time we left that place, many cars had turned up indicating the rush we gonna encounter. Anyways, we drove again. The CD we wrote contained many good songs but the player didn’t recognize it. So, we played another CD which had the habit of skipping few words and making the songs funny. We had a good time trying to catch up with the songs and laughing on the broken sentences.
We reached Shirdi at around 10:15. The official parking was full so spent some time looking for a decent parking. Purchased Prasad and walked across the road barefooted. The entry to the temple was around 200 metres and a long queue was waiting for us. There were these multiple halls (with hundreds of devotees) that we needed to cross before reaching the Sai Baba’s Murti. We had to climb stairs; pass through the basement before reaching the grand hall. We had good “darshan” despite of all the hustle in the grand room and security guards pulling people around. We got free around 11:40 (20 minutes before the long aarti). After the darshan and taking “vibhuti” and Prasad, we left for the parking lot. The road was burning as was the Sun. We ran; jumped over the hot areas in search of shadows to reach the restaurant, we had lunch and resumed the journey there onwards.
Shani Shinghanapur was 70 Kms from shirdi. We had to stop in between to figure out the directions and to get something cold. It was real hot in spite of the A.C blowing to its full capacity. Along the way, we saw various sugarcane juice shops. Something different about all those shops were that they were established in open (covered with tents); had no electric or hand machines; used cows to operate the machines and thus extract juice. We were concerned about the speechless animals. Anyways, we continued and reached our destination around 2:30. It was real hot but more worrying thing was that we had to wear dhoti to be eligible to visit the temple and offer prayers. We had a quick bath, bought dhotis and Prasad; wore dhoti and shot some pics. Gals were not allowed to offer the prayers and Ravinder didn’t want to wet his hair.
So, Anki, Cheeks n I started bare-footed for the temple in the burning afternoon. We went inside, offered coconut and other stuff and then offered the prayers and oil to the shila. All this time, I had a lil tough time getting hold of the dhoti. There was a real chance of it slipping out but I had my hands placed carefully on it. We went back to the car and dressed up before leaving back for Pune. By that time, we had good amount of cosmic energy around ourselves and felt relaxed.
On the way back, we came through Ahmednagar highway. It was broad, 4 laned, smooth road. We just stopped once during the return journey to have some snacks and tea. There, we took some pics on the see-saw and watched kids playing and laughing on the big uncles (us) coming down the slide (We opened the vent and let the hidden child come out). Then, we resumed our journey back listening to the skipping songs.
Reached Pune, parceled burgers from “Mc-Ds”, dropped Cheeks Sis n her roomie and reached home around 9 PM. We all were dirty, tired and sleep thirsty. Had food and slept tight. What a nice trip and nice sleep it was.
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