We finally reached Erumely. We boarded off the car. This time we decided to do it in the traditional way.

The Dance

What happened next is the most memorable one. Being in the corporate world, competing with each other by exhibiting professional skills, this is implausible. We decided to dance to our heart content. This is to celebrate Aiyappa's victory over evil. We bought a small percussion, hired a chenda-wala for 100 bucks. The Dhapan kuthu dance begun while returning from the temple. Shrugging off the world around us, amid the busy road, we danced for a 100 meter stretch and entered into Aiyappa temple. We visited Vavar mosque, prayed and got into the car taking the memories, yet meditating to get a glimpse of Aiyappa's darshan at the top.

The Route

Heavy traffic blocked the road. We proceeded inch-by-inch towards Pamba. Got a hill-top parking and then we reached Pamba after a prolonged time.

The Yatra Begins

After taking the holy dip in Pamba, we all started with the chanting of Aiyappa's charanams with iru-mudi getting loaded on the top. "Swamiya... Saranam Aiyappa...". We begun the yatra with all the prayers and one minded thought to get the darshan of deity. With darshan of Lord ganesha and breaking the coconut for a successful and safety return, we started climbing the hill. We spotted around hundreds of people rushing along with us for the glimpse of lord's darshan. We realised that a batch system is going on. I.e., devotees are sent batch by batch with intermittent stops for the safety of the devotees - appreciable initiative by the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB). But little did we realise that it'll take 6 hours for us to have the darshan. This year had seen the highest number of devotees coming to temple. PP, Ashwin, Naveen and I marched first. Rohit and Raghu made it a little slow. We climbed the Neeli hill and then followed the Apachi Medu. I'm gasping for breath, stopped for sometime. The other three went ahead. I gathered all the motivation to reach to the top and started climbing. Now, Rohit and Raghs are 10 minutes behind me. I continued the yatra. There came another intermittent stop. Then on it was stops everywhere. I moved amid people to go little ahead. It was already 5:30PM and the doubt crept my mind - Will I have darshan of the almighty by today? This made me to move faster. On the way I met PP and Naveen. They said that Ashwin had went ahead as they stopped to breathe. We now as a team of three moved faster communicating to Rohit about the scenario. We realised that they are about an hour behind us. It was a long wait for the darshan and the pressure to have darshan that day started creeping in frequently.

Breaking The Queue

Amid the tension we also witnessed many people breaking the queue and jumping the lines. Frustrated by this act. We stood calm and maintained discipline though we could have also done that. Finally we met Ashwin on standing on the parallel line, about 15 minutes ahead of us.

Glimpse of The Almighty

After the prolonged wait I took the other route (instead of the 18 padi) as I wasn't carrying the iru-mudi with me. I reached near sannadhi and had the glimpse of beautiful and powerful god Swami Aiyappa - all the pains have gone like a sunlight over the snowball. I requested the nearby policeman for one more darshan, he gracefully accepted and I stood there for almost a minute and had the darshan. Felt blessed.

Along came Ashwin and slowly PP and Naveen. We had no clue about Rohit and Raghu as they weren't picking up the call. ll we know is there were 1 hour behind us and will take equal time to get the darshan. It's 10 by now and 11PM the nada closes. We were worried if they would get the darshan. I can empathize their feelings from the top.

We moved to the prasad counter and bought the Aravana Payasam and Appam for everyone.

The Climax

It's 10:58. Harivarasanam song started. Yesudas voice filled the air. But then, after the song, they will close the nada. We had no clue where these people are. We lost hope that they would get darshan today. We started to climb down. Just after the song, we got call from Rohit. He told us to wait. It was 10:58 they got the darshan and 11PM the nada was closed. It was a blessings in disguise. They happened to get the darshan along with harivarasan song. But the moment of tension will remain forever green in their memories. Blessed are we. Happily we walked down. Had kanji, parotta and dosa on the way.

The Missing Icons

As we walked down, I climbed down first, followed by Ashwin, PP and Naveen. Rohit and Raghu made their way a little slower as they were afraid of getting slipped (newly married Rohit motivated Raghu to walk slow :)). After 40 minutes wait we met them. Finally, boarded the car.

Ambalaphuzha Pal Payasam

We then drove to Amabalapuzha (near Allepy) with me in the navigating position. Ooh I dosed off, however, we reached the destination and found a hotel to stay next to the temple. After bath we went to temple and had a good darshan. We then bought the pal payasam prasad. Ah! heavenly taste. Never will we foret the taste of this payasam. Raghu then searched for the recipe of the payasam in the net. I hope he will invite us when he makes this in his home :)

We carried all the happy memories to Bangalore!