Srinivasa Govinda

About three and half decades ago, back in the 90's, my grandmother used to take me to Tirumala almost every other year. She was a great devotee of Lord Venkateshwara and she used to visit every year and sometimes more than once in a year. Typically, we will take a bus to Tirupati and then one more bus to Tirumala, which will drop us off as soon as we climb the hill, right in the beginning itself. And then a long walk towards the temple roads where we had a bunch of lodging accommodations.

So this long walk from the bus-stand to the lodge was filled with street vendors selling several stuff. My granny always used to get me something, a toy car or a toy ring or some such thing but what moved me the most was this song of Srinivasa Govinda, Venkataramana Govinda pretty much in every alternate shop. They had this on and on, the whole day, the whole year. It was so soothing and wonderful to listen, kind of transported me to a different plane altogether. Although I wanted a cassette of that song, I never asked for it nor got one myself later on.

Thanks to Youtube several years later, it became easy to access this song and for many years, sometimes even now, our Sundays start off with this song. Thankfully my wife & daughter likes it too, so it is like a divine way to start off the day. 

When we visited Tirumala last year on our birthday, there was a live performance of this song going on right in front of the temple which was being telecasted live on TTD TV. It was a fantastic rendition (starts from 48th minute here), and we were lucky to be there right in front, from beginning till end, participating all the way through, singing along with the crowd around us. A satsang or bhajan, as one may call it, but it felt so good, so purifying. 

It reminded me of my earliest days in Tirumala, walking on those streets, hearing this song and now being in front of the temple, singing along in a satsang-bhajan. It was like I had come a full cycle...

Sikkid Shiva

It was a hot day even in October in the desert city of Jaisalmer, and we were visiting the fort. After we climbed up high, we were huffing and puffing and we saw a guy selling tender coconuts and we thought we will have one each. 

The unique thing about this vendor was he had segregated his set of tender coconuts into two main sections. One section was for those tender coconuts which he would pick and open it up for us and the other section was for customers to choose and pick and he would open it up for us. The former was pricier than the latter. 

We were three of us, so we took two from his choice and I chose the one from the latter section. As it happened, when he cut out mine we found out that it was empty. Absolutely empty - no water inside at all. Which was the first time in my life, have never seen an empty tender coconut, so had never expected it either. Still, he said we have to pay for it because we chose it and that meant we had committed for that coconut. 

This nonplussed us because we were not sure if he was cheating his customers by simply keeping this second set with all empty tender coconuts just to make money out of it. So we started arguing and asking him to be fair and just that if there is no water, he should not ask us to pay anything. But his argument was that if we had gone with the pricier lot, it was his commitment to provide a good tender coconut and since the second lot was for customers to choose and pick, it was customer's destiny - so to speak. You either got a good one or a rotten one or an empty one depended totally on customer's fate, and that's why he charged less for it. 

It was a very interesting situation to be in, where we were not sure if we were being conned or if it was a fair game since we are not the experts in tender coconut business but we kept on arguing and finally he relented and gave one more which was not too bad. But this incident made me think: 

We get what we choose, and that's our destiny. If we are lucky, we get a good one. If not, hard luck. In Kannada, as they say, "Sikkid Shiva." Just bow and accept.