Tirupati

I went to Tirupati temple in Andhra Pradesh this past weekend. (Photo coming soon.) I thought it was a day-trip type of ordeal. But I was wrong.

Let me start at the beginning. So I went out of town for about 5 days. First I went to a place called Thiraputthur to visit an NGO there called WORLD Society. There will be an Indicorps Fellow placed there next year. I went to observe their adolescent girls project, and perhaps get some new inspiration for my project. Their project was really great--what was greatest is that it's not really a formal, structured program. Rather, each of the field staff managing Self-Help Groups in their areas take it upon their own initiative to organize the adolescent girls there and share whatever learnings they may have gained at their own trainings. It was refreshing. The next day the staff took me up to the mountains (Nayakaneri Malai) to see the work going on in the tribal areas. It seemed like a SHG program that was actually workign in the intended way! Women of these microcredit groups were meeting on their own and taking responsibility to manage their accounts, etc. In our tsunami area, on the other hand, the staff has to pull teeth to get the members to come to meetings, and it is the staff that runs around trying to collect repayments...

From Thiraputthur I went to Vellore to visit an NGO there called SHARE that does palm craft training. Since Tirupati is 2 hours from Vellore, we decided to make a "quick" detour.

We left at 5am on Sunday and started walking up the stairs to the temple at 9:30am. By 1:00pm we got to the top. It was so crazy -- the temple earns crores of rupees a day from pilgrims and so the place is incredibly developed. The whole staircase is covered by a sort of terrace roof thing. I believe we walked about 9 kms up to the temple. Once you get there, you have no idea as to where the temple actually is, but you are funneled through streets and buildings until they put you in a "holding cell" to wait for your turn to receive darsan (ie see the god, or have the god see you.) They actually put you, along with approx 500 others in a room and LOCK the door! I felt SO uneasy, especially when they brought food and all the animals in the cage--I mean people--started rushing the gate. (Sasi, one of the staff, had asked me earlier that day if we could go to the zoo afterwards... I told her that this was her chance!) Anyway, after waiting there for about 5 hrs (I've been told that we were lucky), they open up all of these similar cages, and thousands of people rush through the line. After waiting in that line for 2 hrs, you finally get inside the temple (which you never actually have a chance to see because you are being pushed through a line until you get there). As you walk inside you can feel the oldness of the place. Then you walk to the inner sanctuary (is that what it's called?) are pushed through, make a quick salute to Perumal, and leave. (Afterwards you get to stand in another line to get your 1 ladoo-- the sweet that Tirupati's famous for.) By the time we got out of the temple it was midnight. Then we went and collected our shoes, cell phones, cameras and found a place to sleep. We slept in this outdoor common hall. The next morning we bathed in a common bathroom. Two experiences I would have never thought I'd experience.

Now I'm back in Cuddalore, and trying to gear up to get some things done in this next month. I have a new idea to start to teach some basic finance/accounting to some kids who are recipients of a monthly stipend because they lost both their parents in the tsunami. Right now all there is to it is that one fo our staff goes out once a month and gives out some cash. I'd like to try to make the kids more active in the process. So blackmail them into coming to my training sessions every 2-3 months :). I'm aiming to teach them things like basic budgeting, accounting prioritizing, future planning, how to calculate interest, etc. any and all ideas/suggestions are welcome!