The "Jharugandi" Brigade

THE “JHARUGANDI” BRIGADE


The most peaceful experience it used to be every year, to climb the difficult mountain range of seven mountains to the abode of Lord Venkateshwara. Over tens yrs I was for some strange reason or the other unable to make it for darshan. This time around with a number of adjustments in terms of dates and convenience and suitability we finally made the reservations to undertake the long journey to Tirupati from Bangalore.

Being arthritic I made it to the temple with difficulty after over two hrs of waiting and seeing people at times breaking Q’s nudging pushing and getting ahead In spite of the rough handling by most of the TTD staff in and around the sanctum sanctorum I kept my cool and tried to concentrate on the "darshan". Just when I got inside the inner most precincts with folded hands, my hand was suddenly held rudely and I was given a swift push with the words ‘jharungandi’thus dismantling the namaste position and ruining my peace while causing pain in my wrist. In a reflex reaction I elbowed the girl and proceeded ahead sandwiched between a number of devotees, barely saw the lord as we were hurled forward again, lost concentration and was wondering if the whole exercise was worth it when suddenly four to five TTD staff came, blocked my path and asked me to get aside.

They started shouting, “How dare you….” “What right have u got….”etc while pushing me by my shoulder. I was taken aback and kept walking ahead into another Q for prasadam. Just when I thought it was all over and very distasteful, there were another four men ganged up with the four girls and they asked me to step aside and harassed me as to why I pushed her and told me to march up to the police station for a complaint of ‘assault’ against me! And all the while I thought I was the one who should have complained to the authorities for their unruly behaviour. The events took an ugly turn when they brushed aside my husband who was apologizing profusely to them in order to diffuse the pent up anger and close the issue as a huge crowd had gathered in the temple premises and things started getting out of hand when they ganged up and started abusing him too. Now I was hell bent on defending my stance but was not allowed to speak, as my voice could not rise above the din. Finally when I did speak they told me it was their’duty’ to push people and keep them moving and I told them politely that it was my duty to 'defend' myself. We kept moving out of the temple and they followed till a point from where they had to turn back and that was like the line in a kabbadi match. In spite of their strength and number we got out of this tricky situation only after apologizing profusely to the girl in question without even knowing my crime!
The best thing that arose out of the situation was that the hundreds of devotees who were behind us got a peaceful darshan without the “jharugandi” brigade who are like the powerful mafia of Tirupati, roughing them up. Lucky them and poor me. My mind was clouded by the incident long after and it obliterated the image of the lord which I could only register in under 3 seconds quite vaguely.. Wonder then if it’s worth all the effort to go to Tirupati after much planning for a 3 second darshan and a whole lot of “jharungandi” instead of the chanting of ‘OM……….”in the background.