Vande Shinharudha Devi khadga kharpara dharini

Durgati nashinee durga adyashakti sanatani

Sharanagata deenarta paritrana parayane

Sarv syarti hare devi narayani namostute

Maa ke paavan charano main mera sat sat pranam…



This was a gift for me and i had the opportunity to visit the most sacred place on earth “Vaishno Devi”. Placed on the Trikuta Hill the goddess mother is blessing us and it was a much awaited call for me to visit her and I am obliged.

It was a sudden thought in my mind to visit the Goddess mother and eventually she called me. It happened many a times that visits to her place was planned but at the end cancelled for me. But this time I was lucky to get a chance to visit the shrine. As usual we were the same company of 3 ( Me, Tapan & Pramod Sir) but this time Nagendra added to it to make a batch of 4 for the visit. We tried booking train tickets but due to 3 days leave and huge rush we did not get the tickets. We tried booking Tatkal tickets too but were not able to do it. Finally we decided to go by bus and that to Roadways. And once we decided to go for it we never set back. Hence it was 24th Dec evening all 4 of us started our journey from our office only. We hired a cab to reach ISBT,Kashmiri Gate. We reached Kashmiri Gate at around 8.30 in the evening. Being the peak in winter the temperature went down to below 10 degree and in the deem mercury street light Delhi was looking great. Wishing one another Merry Christmas we left office and reached ISBT but looking at the chaos in the Bus adda we were disheartened to see the long queues for tickets. There were no bus and the public was waiting for more than 5 hours for ticket with no result. After waiting for around and 1.5 hrs we decided to go via Ludhiana and boarded a Haryana roadways bus. We were about to get tickets I got a call from Pramod Sir asking us to get down as he got a direct bus to Katra. We suddenly got down from that bus and boarded the direct bus to katra. This is how we used the experience of Pramod sir and thanked him. After the bus started towards the destination at around 11.30 pm in the night, we had the heavy alu ka paranthas with aachar and tried to sleep. At around one o clock in the night the bus halted at some place n we had coffee. The bus den dwelled on to the hills and we were trying hard to get ourselves some sleep but the Haryana Roadways bus bound by his nature was preventing us to rest. There were nasty jokes and fun among 4 of us wherein we got few companies as well during the travel. Finally around 11 am we reached Katra, the place from where we had to start the 12 km walk upwards to rich the holy shrine. Being the busiest season of the year we found little difficulty in getting a hotel but finally we managed. We did a brave job & took bath in the cold water on the hillside hotel and started towards the shrine. It was around one in the afternoon hence we had food and reached the footsteps. there was a long queue for security check up and then we started climbing the hill. There was a shops on both sides of the road and everything was made available but on paying cost for it. With Tapan & nagender being younger people than we two had started with ret pace but sooner after climbing 2 to 3 kilometers Tapan found to be the most tired man and was lagging behind us. There we found the Rabbit & turtle story proving worth and the whole 12 kn climbing Tapan was the most sufferer. He had vomiting too and few related complications but we were determined to get him to the top. So sometime it was Limca to sometime its Juice to the healing tablets were at his service to get him timely relief. The time we reached the shrine gates Tapan was fine and was dwelling with enthusiasm to get Darshan. We reached the Gates of the holy shrine at around 11.30 pm in the night but to our surprise a kilometer long three line queues of people were already waiting for the same purpose. We then stood in the queue to get darshan and our turn came at around 12.20 in the night and we were lined up for darshan and it was like a sacred time when we got a glimpse of the holy Mother goddess and enriched our lives with joy and her blessings. This was my first visit to the shrine and was a memorable one. Then we had food and returned back in the night itself. We reached our hotel back in the morning and started towards the bus adda to catch bus back to Delhi. Again a Haryana Roadways helped us in getting back to Delhi. Our motto to get darshan and get blessings from the mother goddess was fruitful. We prayed to the mother to bless us and may our wishes come true. The year 2009 has brought us many good times & bad timess but we were there to thank the mother goddes for all good times and to keep us safe guarded from all evil things and we all expect the new year 2010 will bring us good time and best fortune to fulfill all our dreams.

There were few instances like bus breakdown and couple of more occasions which gave us ample time to spend together and relax. I know this could be a much better post. So please get me your ideas to make it better..