Despite belonging to one of the *conservative* *relegious* and *multi-theistical* tamil communities from down south, I never had the urge to go to temples. I only occasionally "accompanied" a family member or a freind to a nearby temple. But THIS was different..
We had planned this 3 day trip to Panchgani & Mahabaleshwar. Travel bug had never bit me so far, but a 5 day free luxorious bunglow with backyard, garden & cook at your disposal was too hard to resist" . A good colleague of mine suggested that I take the long way down via Pune ( yeah! Brangelina city of India!) to stop over at the Balaji temple at Ketkewale, around 40 Kms South of Pune in NH4. This temple is supposedly the largest replica of the real Tiupati Trimala Balaji Temple with extremely beatifully decorated, sculpted & well maintained premises. As I casually mentioned this fact to my family, they were pretty sceptical of its likeness to the Tirupati devasthan but probably agreed to visit the temple out of sheer curiosity.
We left Mumbai at 6.00 am and reached the temple at 10.15 am. On seeing the the poor & stony approach road to the temple, my mother who has walking difficulties, preferred to stay back in the vehicle we had hired for the trip ( although with great hesitation) . But the temple officials were very quick to send over a very new & sturdy wheelchair for her and even offered to wheel her for the darshan. We were thoroughly overwhelmed by their gesture and happily rolled her into the temple preemises . All the guards within the complex were kind enough to let us jump the long queue of weary & restless devotees and even the devotees paved the way without a grimace.
All of us had a fleeting but satiating darshan of the almighty. As we proceeded towards the exit, each devotee was not only offered a very big laddu as prasadam, but also a coupon for "bhojana" . The temple official was politely requesting them to avail the "Bhojan" at the adjoining building as he was handing over the tokens to the tired devotees coming from far & away. At the Bhojanalay, the hot food was served by the staff with great hygiene. The place was well maintained & clean with excellent seating arrangement for all the devotees. One could see devotees from all statas of the society seated next to each other enjoying the divine serving !
We had planned this 3 day trip to Panchgani & Mahabaleshwar. Travel bug had never bit me so far, but a 5 day free luxorious bunglow with backyard, garden & cook at your disposal was too hard to resist" . A good colleague of mine suggested that I take the long way down via Pune ( yeah! Brangelina city of India!) to stop over at the Balaji temple at Ketkewale, around 40 Kms South of Pune in NH4. This temple is supposedly the largest replica of the real Tiupati Trimala Balaji Temple with extremely beatifully decorated, sculpted & well maintained premises. As I casually mentioned this fact to my family, they were pretty sceptical of its likeness to the Tirupati devasthan but probably agreed to visit the temple out of sheer curiosity.
We left Mumbai at 6.00 am and reached the temple at 10.15 am. On seeing the the poor & stony approach road to the temple, my mother who has walking difficulties, preferred to stay back in the vehicle we had hired for the trip ( although with great hesitation) . But the temple officials were very quick to send over a very new & sturdy wheelchair for her and even offered to wheel her for the darshan. We were thoroughly overwhelmed by their gesture and happily rolled her into the temple preemises . All the guards within the complex were kind enough to let us jump the long queue of weary & restless devotees and even the devotees paved the way without a grimace.
All of us had a fleeting but satiating darshan of the almighty. As we proceeded towards the exit, each devotee was not only offered a very big laddu as prasadam, but also a coupon for "bhojana" . The temple official was politely requesting them to avail the "Bhojan" at the adjoining building as he was handing over the tokens to the tired devotees coming from far & away. At the Bhojanalay, the hot food was served by the staff with great hygiene. The place was well maintained & clean with excellent seating arrangement for all the devotees. One could see devotees from all statas of the society seated next to each other enjoying the divine serving !
What moved me was the kindness & courtesy all the officials and guards displayed during such delicate situations. One can probably never witenss such grace towards senior & incapacitated citizens in any other place of worship. To me its was not a temple of lord Balaji, it was a temple of love & kindness and devotion to humanity, which is the need of the hour for the world we live in!
Customer care has always been problem issue for Indian enterprises. Probably they could learn a thing or two from the temple management!!!
Govinda! Govinda!!!
