MY EXPERIENCES WITH GOD – THE POWER OF MEHANDIPUR BALAJI

Back in the summer of 2004, my parents had taken us on a trip to Mehandipur Balaji Temple in Dausa, Rajasthan. By us, I mean me+husband and daughter, my brother with his wife and kids, my younger sister with her husband and kid. Dad, an ardent devotee of Hanuman ji, wished to visit this famous temple with all of us. The life of both my mom and dad revolved around us children, and I cannot remember a time when they had made a trip alone to any place. It was always with us all.

So, one fine afternoon, when each of us had taken leave from our offices, we set out to visit the temple. We had hired a Tata Sumo. We were eight adults and four infants. The travel was enjoyable – family trips are always enjoyable, especially when one is with parents. We reached the temple in the evening, it was around dusk time. We entered the temple. As per the plan we had hired two rooms in the temple complex. We planned to attend the evening aarti, and spend the night in the temple, attend the morning aarti and then return to Delhi.

All was well. We checked into the rooms, and were thinking of freshening up when, in the corridor outside the rooms, I noticed people around, actually quite a few of them:  a woman behaving strangely; a child – perhaps a mentally-challenged one – with odd mannerism. Out of curiosity, I came out of the room and began roaming around. To my shock, I realized most the people there had some issue or the other. They had their relatives calling them in, reigning them. We were, perhaps, the only normal ones there. Dead scared I came back to my room and told my brother and dad that something was not right. My brother ventured out and inquired with the temple staff. They told him that many of these people had some oopari chhaya and had come to the temple for jhaad-phoonk. Bhai returned, almost as worried as me. And we decided to get out of the temple complex. We told dad everything, and said “Let us move out. We will forgo the sandhya aarti.”

We folded our hands in prayers to Hanuman ji and moved out. The cab driver was perplexed. When we told him about what we saw, he said, “Yahan log bhoot-pret utarvaane ke liye aate hain. Aap nahin jaante kya?” Honestly, none of us knew about it.

By this time, it had already become very dark. We nevertheless wanted to get out of the place as soon as possible, scared that some evil may befall upon us. We told the driver to speed off. We were so scared that even the tree shadows on road felt like a demons waiting to engulf us. All of us started chanting Hanuman Chalisa as loudly as possible, almost in loop. We hadn’t eaten a morsel of food since we started from Delhi around 1pm. But hunger was an emotion not felt by anyone of us. We had some chips, which the infants munched.

As we crossed the borders of Rajasthan, we heaved a sigh of relief, as though we had escaped the clutches of demons. And in that fear, I told my husband, “We shall never ever come to this temple again.”

Moving forward to 2010

We took a trip to Jaipur. Since my husband’s chachu lives in Jaipur, visiting Jaipur was and is, always a much looked-forward trip. Not just because it is an old historical city with many old marvels but mainly because we get to spend time with lovable Chachu-Chachi. One day we thought of visiting Shree Mahaveer ji temple in Karauli. My in-laws refused to move out of the home. So, the four of us decided to make a one-night trip to the place. The next morning, we happily set out for the temple. My husband, who had visited the place earlier on an official trip, had praised it sky-high. “There is huge stream of water nearby, part of it shallow and you can sit on the banks and even walk inside. You can even have a boat ride a little deeper into the water body,” he said. I am naturally drawn towards water. Maybe I was an aquatic animal in my last birth. “You must have been born in Rajasthan, and faced acute water shortage,” my mom would often joke. Whatever it be, I love being in areas with rivers and stream – it gives me immense inner joy. And that was my main aim of agreeing to the temple.

We reached the place in couple of hours. And after visiting the temple, I was too excited to go for a boat ride. But to my bad luck, I saw no water stream. It was all dry. The locals told us that it is a barsaati nadi, and you get water only during monsoon season. And, we were in the peak of summer season. Crestfallen, we checked into the hotel, and decided to leave early morning the next day, for Jaipur, so that we could visit some other interesting tourist spot!

We started around 7am. Didn’t even wait for the breakfast at hotel, thinking we will eat on the way. After all, it’s a few hours only to Jaipur. Just bought some milk for the younger one who was about five years of age at that time. The city had just woken up, and as moved on to the highway to Jaipur, we saw little traffic on the road. Feeling good and happy at minimal traffic, my husband decided to drive for some more time before stopping for breakfast. “We will stop at some road side restaurant for food around 9am,” he said. Kids were fine with that, and I was okay too. But a few moments later, we noticed s cores of cops on the highway. And one of them signalled us to move away from the highway. “Today is the final hearing of a famous politician’s case. The judge will give the final verdict and we are anticipating hooliganism by his supporters. So highway has been closed to traffic. You move through the inner villages roads,” one of the cops informed us upon inquiring.

Okay, no probs, we thought. But ‘no probs’ was the only thing we didn’t face. Moving through the internal roads of the villages along the highway, we lost our way. Those villages were very less populated, and we could hardly see any people around. There were houses though, but no one outside of these houses. Either they were told to not venture out fearing trouble or the people had gone out to their fields. We crossed villages, one after the other, just based on our own judgment. By this time it was already 11am, the kids were hungry, though sitting quietly, and not troubling us. But as parents we were feeling extremely guilty. We should have had breakfast at the hotel and then moved out. “I should have kept some snacks, some biscuits, at least,” I thought to myself. There wasn’t even a fruit thela anywhere.

Husband was worried for fuel. “What if the fuel tank is emptied in this manouvering, what will we do?” he asked. One man with three females in those almost barren-of-people land. As usual, I started praying to God seeking his help. And then came the help. We noticed a villager, stopped the car, and asked him. “Bhaiya Jaipur jaane ka rasta bataa dijiye.” They looked at each of us and said, “aap galat aa gaye ho,” and gave some directions. I was not convinced. What if he has told us the wrong way? What if he is some conman, some thief? “Move ahead I told my husband. We will not take his way,” I said, in fear, “We will find way on our own.”

We moved ahead. On those narrow lanes, and at some distance, we noticed a cop. Never in my life, would I have felt so relieved to see a cop as I felt at that time. Khaki uniform, does give some sense of security. We drove up to him, and asked him the same question. And he said the same thing as the earlier man had. So, that man was genuine. Inwordly, I felt bad about distrusting him, and in my heart told him sorry as well. The cop told us the way.

“While to you go, look at your left side, you will see a Hanuman temple. When you see that, understand that you are on the right path,” he said.

“What Hanuman temple?” I asked.

“Oh! that Mehandipur Hanuman Temple, it is a famous temple. You cannot miss it, you will notice many people there,” he replied.

How had we entered Mehandipur? And it struck me. Back in 2004, I had said that I will never come to this temple again. But who am I to say so? I am not the decision-maker, I cannot be the decision-maker. It’s God. I bowed to Hanuman ji.

Within minutes we reached the temple road. I still had no courage to enter it, but we stopped the car on the road. Paid obeisance to Hanuman ji, apologised for my mistakes, sought HIS blessings, and I said, “I shall come to you whenever you call me, Hanumanji. Thou thee all, I thee nothing. Please forgive me and my family.”

And we moved ahead. Few moments later, a cop directed us to the highway. “The highway is clear!” he said.

The learning: We are nobodies, and we must not give ourselves undue importance. God is the doer. We must never take ourselves too seriously.

More coming soon

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