A Wanderer's Diary

Contrary to what everyone thought we were in no mood for great celebrations. So we decided to

visit a temple first thing in the morning and pray for everyone's well being. We planned to

visit two temples that day.

The first one was a Saibaba temple in Bhivpuri, which is a small village near Karjat (An

important railway station on he Mumbai Pune sector). It also has a railway station called

Bhivpuri road which is before Karjat. We got up early to catch the 7.15 train from Ambernath .

The train though crowded was on time. We (me, wife and two kids) managed to get in. The crowd

inside the train consisted of daily officgoers, students and groups going for a vacation. Neral

which is the nearest railhead for Matheran saw the maximum number of people getting down.

Wr reached Bhivpuri by 8 amThe temple is around 1km from the railway station on the western

side. The temple is built by a devotee of Saibaba who was told by Baba to do so. In fact, Baba

had given him his (Baba's) photo and instructed never come to Shirdi worship me at your home.

The photo is still there in the sanctum sanctorum.

The ardent devotee constructed a temple alongwith, a baug (garden), dhuni (holy fire) and tulsi

vrindavan and devoted his life in service of Baba. It is said that he had seen Baba personally

come to the temple one night.

This was our second visit and we contine to find the place divine. Do visit in case you are

nearby.

The second temple on our agenda was of Akkalkot Swami Samarth another great saint of

Maharashtra. This temple is situated at Palasdhari which the station after Karjat on the Karjat

khopoli train. We reached Bhivpuri station byh 9 am for the 9.30 Khopoli train.

The station was swarming with students with books in their hands. They were busy studying for

the exams. Bhivpuri has an engineering and management college near the station.

After watching their antics we still had time, so we decided to fill our stomachs. There is a

stall near the station which sells hot bhajis and vada pav. We gobbled some and finished with a

glass of hot tea.

We reached the station in time for the train and started our journey to Palasdhari. The train

was fairly empty after Karjat. It took us about 15 mins to reach Palasdhari.

On alighting at Palasdhari we started our walk towards the temple. The short path starts from

the railway tracks, takes us through narrow lanes, small houses smeared with cowdung, a village

well before reaching the temple.

The temple has calm and serene atmosphere. There was no one that day so we could leisurely pray

to the lord. There is also a medidation room which caters to all those who want to strike a

silent chord with the Lord.

We started our journey back to the railway station. It was 11.15 am and we thought we would make in time for the 11.30 Karjat shuttle. But fate had something else in store for us.

When we came out we were surrounded by some dogs. We managed to shoo all of them barring one who had decided that he wanted something from us. When we could scare him we decided to share some biscuits with him. We were carrying Parle Hide N Seek and Pickwick biscuit wafers but were reluctant to part with it as the kids love them. That's when the kids surprised us saying they can share their entire food with the dog and started feeding.

Later more dogs joined and we also parted with our packed of wafers. Suddenly wife realized that we will be late. So we all dashed out of the temple on the way to the station. We were just about 50 metres from the station when we saw our train pass us as if saying "Sorry you are late."

The next train was an hour and half later. Great. We had to spend 90 minutes at a station which had no one barring the rail cabin staff. My kids decided to pay homage to our ancestors (all human beings have common ancestors you know who) and started behaving like them. My sure acts like climbing on trees, pushing each other, jumping of benches would have made our ancestors proud.

The rail cabin which drew our attention was a small one with few people who were adept in multitasking managing it. The cabin also functioned as a ticket counter.

Finally after a long wait and exhausting all our patience the train arrived on time to take us to Karjat from where we would take another train to Ambernath.

An interesting trip on the whole barring all the incidents. An outing with the family is always a cherished one for me.

That's it for now.