Friday, June 30, 2006

Friday Lunch turns Pilgrimage Discovery

Friday Lunch turns Pilgrimage Discovery

Being Friday today and instead of just struggling with the old unpalatable and monotonous food, I had a schedule to work out some sumptous lunch outside. Then, the decision was homed in on to Hotel Saravana Bhavan in Ashok Nagar. Of course, the restaurant is bit expensive. HSB did enter into and get hands dirty into litigations but that is in a different behavior aspect of its founder, Rajagopal. As far as the restaurant is concerned, the quality is extremely good albeit the quantity would be an inverse proportional. They do have door deliveries and fast food outlets in many of the key places in Chennai. So planning a bite at HSB should'nt take a while as also getting a bite for the wallet -- credit card and the bank account.

Well! Coming back to the discussion, the travel to the restaurant from my workplace is just about three bus stops and in the bus, there was an advertisement by a travels operator based from Mylapore (I guessed this, based from the telephone number). They were operating almost weekly tours to Shirdi.

Shirdi Sai BabaShirdi is famous for Shirdi Sai Baba temple and it is located, I guess, in the state of Maharastra. There are a lot of Shirdi Sai Baba devotees. Regarding Chennai, Shirdi Sai Baba has His temple in Mylapore, in the road opposite to Mylapore tank, opposite to Desika Bhavanam. I do not at the moment, recall the road, but from near Mylapore tank, it is about two to three minutes walk and anybody there would be able to guide the pilgrim, wishing to worship Shirdi Sai Baba

For the tech savvy, you can locate Shirdi Sai Baba temple website over here. Perhaps, since it is Friday, you can have a plan of visiting any of Shirdi Sai Baba temples. Within Chennai, Mylapore should be fine. I have noted down the telephone numbers of the travel operator whose advertisment I have seen and would like to give them for readers' convenience:

  • +914424950318
  • +914424952319

Did a check in Chennai BSNL Directory lookup for the abovesaid numbers. The first number could not be found listed but the latter was listed with the following details. But I think, since Shirdi is an overnight journey from Chennai, you may need to book for the next week now. Here is the travel operator details:

KUMARESAN M ,
43,SOUTH MADA STREET,
MYLAPORE P.O.,
CHENNAI-600004

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am a shiridi Sai Baba devotee myself. Apart from Mylopore temple there are two others Baba temples in Chennai (which i know of).

1. Near Gunidy railway station. Take the immediate left after the petrol bunk which is next to the railway station. [I was told that this is the first Sai Baba temple built in chennai].

2. Near Neelangarai.
Take the left after prathana drive in theatre (on the neelangari - ECR road). Its one of the biggest temple i have ever seen. Very neat and calm place. Must visit for any Sai devotee.

Deepak Vasudevan said...

@Vadivel,

Thank you for the pointers. Definitely, I hope, this would be of tremendous user guidance to Shirdi Sai Baba devotees.

I have seen Guindy temple, however, I have'nt got a chance to enter it though. Perhaps sometime, if Baba blesses His darshan, I can enter and come.

Also, Neelangarai temple is new to me. I would have it scheduled for the next weekend.

Anonymous said...

Hi sai devotees,
There is one more shirdi sai temple at west mambalam opp. ayodya mandapam(not exactly opposite but just to the right side)Inthe lane of aravindar annai temple.