4th January 2003

As soon as we alighted at the bus stop, we walked a long distance to ‘Vaishali’. There are many lodges in Dharmasthala like Vaishali, Nethravathi, Gangotri, Saketha, Gayatri etc. all of them being rivers of India. In Vaishali, there were no rooms. So we walked back to ‘Gayatri’, a lodge near the bus stop. To our misfortune, there were no rooms there as well. Then, we had some coffee. We went back to ‘Sharavathi’, a lodge close to ‘Vaishali’. Thankfully, there were plenty of rooms. We got room no. 463 – topmost floor. It was a small room, with a bulb, a fan and 2 cots, and nothing else. We threw our luggages down, rested for a while, and went out to get our haircut.

Mahesh went to the ‘Harake Mande’ to get all his hair shaved off, whereas I just went to a saloon. It was Mahesh’s strong belief, that it is a must to give some hair to the God, when you are in a holy place. So, I did not want to argue with him. I then joined Mahesh, who was still in the queue. By 7:30 am, we were out. Mahesh, who had plenty of hair a moment ago, was now a ‘baldie’. We had a coldwater bath in our lodge (that too soft water, so the soap wouldn’t go off so easily.). Then, we went to the river Nethravathi by a jeep. The water was very less. Moreover it was dirty, and filled with clothes the people had discarded. It’s a belief that when you wash away your sins, by taking a dip in the water, you must discard your clothes as well. So much for cleanliness!!

We took a few snaps, and returned to the town center by an auto. We decided to go to the ‘darshana’ of Manjunatheshwara. While going to the ‘darshana’, I saw dad’s friend, Mr.Ramaiah. I greeted him, and then continued on our way to the temple. The queue was not so long. We shelled out money for the ‘prasada’ and got the ‘darshana’ of Shree Amma devaru, Shree Manjunatheshwaraswamy and Shree Ganapathy. We had entered the temple at about 9:15 am. We were out by 10:15 am. Last time, when I was here with dad, mom and Sharath, the darshana had taken about 3 ½ hours.

My stomach was growling, so I decided to feed him something. We had ‘poori sagoo’ at a nearby hotel called ‘Akshaya’ next to our lodge. We were quite tired (especially because it was very very hot.) We rested in the lodge for sometime. Until now, I went to only those places Mahesh wanted to go to. Now, we went to places that I wanted to see.