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Day 59 (March 6, 2000) The temple at Tirumula - Balaji Sri Venkateswara - a Vishnu temple, is the "most-pilgrimed" temple in the world. I expected a frenzy of shaven headed devotees all pushing toward the front, breaking coconuts against walls, lighting fires, throwing flowers, prostrating themselves at every available angle toward the main shrine. But this temple, despite being the busiest in the world, is the most organized, cleanest, and richest temple in India. It is more like an American depiction of an Indian temple than an Indian temple, from start to finish. The one-way road 17 kilometers up the mountain is smooth and two lanes wide and even protected by guard rails and reflectors and signs that say "sharp curve ahead," etc. Unheard of anywhere else. The landscape surrounding the road has been professionally tended, there are ladies with brooms sweeping up the leaves and flower blossoms that stray from tree to ground. Once at the temple the shops are all very well organized to the side of the wide road to it. There is no littering, spitting or prostrating allowed. It is definitely not high-season. A devotee later told me that after May you can't get in the place, but today we walked through many huge rooms and rows and rows of benches where the devotees and tourists can sit and watch a television while waiting for the darshan line to move. Though from the outside the temple is impressive - huge white gopurums set against the green rocky mountains and blue sky - the inside is pretty boring. Again, there's no mess, no hysteria, no prostrating, spitting, breaking of coconuts, lighting of fires. A staff keeps people from pushing too hard as we shuffle toward the main diety, but shouts go up, just the same, a chant I can't recognize, om na ma Vishnu, I expect it is, but it doesn't sound like that at all. Marcia and I shuffle toward the figure, probably about 5 feet high, all gold and jewels and bedecked with flowers (only on Fridays does one get to see him "naked" in all his gold and bejeweled splendor). We seem to be the only pink people in the place. We've been trying to spot another tourist but there is no one. This has its advantages. Everyone is very nice, nobody has learned the bad behavior that we've come to expect from a touristed place, the unending ear-splitting in-your-face shouts of HELLO HELLO, children demanding rupees or pens, beggars poking and grabbing. It is all too fast. We are shoved a little toward the figure, we get darshan, we are shoved out, but the crowd in front of me won't move. There is also a man tugging on my arm indicating that I should stay and look at the diety for a longer time, but at the same time a woman guard is pulling on my other arm telling me to hurry along and get out with the other devotees. Marcia is being pulled to stay by yet another guard. He and the man who is pulling me toward the diety are shouting at the woman who has my other arm. It's hot and I really would rather go, but I don't want to insult these people -- some of them devotees -- who are giving us preference. Our self-appointed guide has explained that we are very lucky, that foreigners are treated especially nicely because we have come such a long way to see the gods. Finally we're ejected, take a seat outside in contemplation, but apparently that's not allowed either and everyone is shooed away. What IS allowed is to put money in the Hundai, or offering bucket, a huge copper thing with holes in it. We do, and we get puja-ed -- that is, we get some holy water and then a priest lays a head-sized bell on our heads and chants some words. Done. Maybe this is why it's auspicious to get one's head shaved before visiting this temple... to let the bell vibe on your scalp without hinderance. As we walk away I hear the sound of many coins and walk over to a screened in area to investigate. It is a room with about fifty men wearing white lungis all sitting about on the floor with piles of coins atop burlap bags. The coins have been separated into different sizes where they are put in front of another man with a magnet in one hand to scoop up the coins and sort them into another burlap bag. It's like hearing fifty men playing about in Ali Baba's cave. There are also gold pieces and jewelery mixed in, and a lot of other small stuff that we can't identify. When the coins are sorted by size they get rolled out of the room into another room where people sort them into smaller and smaller batches. This is the richest temple in India, perhaps not the world, I don't know (I suspect that distinction goes to the Vatican). They have built thousands of guestrooms around the temple, they have free buses that shuttle people between Tirupathi, where we are staying, and the temple, and they provide free food and even housing to the pilgrims. With all those piles of money sitting there it's easy to imagine how they do it. Now, outside, we can see that the stupa - the roof over the main diety's chamber - is incredibly ornate and made from pure gold. As we gaze at it several devotees who wish to practice their English tell us this - that it is very decorated and made from pure gold - and we nod in appreciation as sincerely as we can about three times before we decide to leave. Once outside we find we've only spent about an hour in the whole process. I'd expected it to take the entire day. So it's shopping time. Temple shops are tiny shacks with the largest variety of kitch you can ever hope to find all in one place - perhaps the Mission district in San Francisco excepted. Marcia has been collecting bracelets and bangles, 12 for 10 rupees, the most expensive have been 40 rupees for a pair. She's got me hooked. Never a shop-til-you-drop kind of gal, I am now scouring the shops for bangles, finger and toe rings, stickers, refrigerator magnets, wall hangings... you name it. I blame her. But she blames me for a renewed caffine habit. Outside we also found some people selling offerings that you're supposed to put in the Hundais. Is it sacriledge to keep them instead? They are tin and copper shaped depictions of body parts - you name it (really) - they've got it hammered out in tin, to put in the Hundai for a wish to make it better. Eye, mouth, leg, arm, chest, nose, hand, foot, various and sundry private parts, entire body, male, female, baby, business, marriage, prosperity, education, automobile. Oh, they don't have a motorbike. I asked at each one.
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