Have a comfortable and captivating darshanam of Lord Sri Venkateshwara Swamy of Tirumala everyday!

Navarathri rituals and celebrations commenced yesterday, 8th October. The twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad are celebrating Bathukamma festival with greater enthusiasm this year due to the wide publicity given to the festival by ‘Telangana Jagruti’, a cultural organization. Large Bathukammas are placed at all important traffic junctions to promote the festival. Garba and Dandiya traditional dances in colorful costumes have commenced all over the city and will continue every evening until late in the night and at some places until dawn! With Dasara and Deepavali festivals in the next few days, shopping is at its peak. It is a very exciting time for everyone, especially for the youngsters, additionally due to holidays.

In celebration of this festive season I wanted to write on some aspects of Navarathrulu but suddenly the idea of offering you a darshanam of Lord Sri Venkateshwara Swamy struck me. The following three videos are of some of the various rituals carried out at the Temple of Sri Venkateshwara Swamy, showing the main deity!

These videos were brought forward and presented by TV9, a Telugu TV News Channel. These videos are almost 60 years old and very precious. Subsequent to this filming at the sanctum sanctorum, filming and photography were never permitted later. At the beginning of the article I said “have a comfortable and captivating darshanam of Lord Sri Venakateshwara Swamy” (I meant; thorough these videos) because today with over 50,000 pilgrims visiting the Temple everyday you get less than a second to be in front of the deity and perhaps a few more seconds to be in the sanctum sanctorum.  I carry these unique videos in my iPhone and when I show them to friends and acquaintances they are thrilled. I hope you too will like them.  

The last video is of Purna Abhishekam Seva which is performed only on Fridays and tickets for this Arjita Seva are now booked in advance for several years. However in the good old days I along with my wife and the families of my sister and brother had the opportunity of performing this Seva, when we could sit right in front of Sri Venkateshwara Swamy Deity close to one hour. This is the most satisfying darshanam of the Lord we had so far. Subsequently we have never been able to book for this Seva.