An Interesting Incident..

On a breezy evening, a couple went on a shopping spree. They were accompanied by their elder daughter and younger son. They entered into one of the busiest shopping streets in town. It was a service road, looks like shoulders, of a highway, with shopping malls on one side and street hawkers on the other side. The hawkers made equal, or sometimes, more business than the shopping malls. So, the couple were walking on the street looking at various hawker stalls and stopped at some stalls.

Suddenly, a lady beggar followed them and started begging the wife standing right behind her.

Beggar said,"Oh mam, please give some money, you will have a nice and helpful husband".

Wife was taken aback and said, " I am already married to a nice and helpful husband who is walking in front of me. And I do not have change to give you.". She started walking again. However the beggar followed her.

Now, the beggar again said, "Oh mam, please give money, you both will have a daughter who will love you a lot".

Wife wanted to stop her and said," I do not have change now and I cannot give money. And we are already blessed with my daughter who love us a lot", showing their daughter who was walking on the other side. She started following her husband again.

The beggar hurried again and said, "Oh mam, please give money, you will have a son who will bring fortunes".

Wife impatiently said, "I said I do not have change. You are wasting your time. And the kid that my husband holding in his hands is my son. He brought some fortunes after he was born. Now please beg someone else".

However, the beggar didn't leave her and staggered behind the wife. Hastily, the beggar said, "Oh mam, please give money. You will buy a new car and new home."

This time, the wife recollected whatever happened, smiled with in herself and with a deep sigh said, "The fortunes I told you before, are the car and a new house. And I am still saying, I do not have change and I cannot give you money". She thought it would finish the discussion and she could continue with her shopping.

But the beggar said, "Mam, you are fortunate to have everything that a normal human like to have. So why don't you be generous towards me?"

The wife totally wanted to end the discussion and replied in a harsh tone," I already said, I do not have change to give away. I have been telling this to you but you didn't listen."

The beggar stopped following and went away. Through out the episode, the husband never cared about the discussion and didn't even look back. However, he laughed with in himself at times.

Personally, imagining myself in the situation, I had few laughs during the discussion, recollected what grand fathers used to preach and finally, I realized few things important in life.

As a reader, reading this till here, there are 2 questions that can be answered, if you are in the Wife's character. One, what would be your reactions every time the beggar stopped you and asked you? Second, what are those 2 important things that you learnt and realized at the end of the story? You can answer yourself or share in the comment box below. I updated mine in the comments. Hope you had a good read.

A Weekend Get Away - Anantagiri Hills, Sree Anantha Padmanabhaswamy Temple

A weekend trip - ok - conditions apply, only for people in Hyderabad, Telangana. For rest of people who are not living in Hyderabad, plan it sometime when you visit the city at leisure.

The main reason behind writing this post is that I felt there is incomplete information in the internet about the hills or the temple. So, I thought I would share all the information that I have since I visited this place recently.

A panaromic view of the temple entrance

Anantagiri hills are small bunch of low altitude hills, located 5 KM from Vikarabad, a town in Rangareddy district of Telangana state. It is a 2 hr drive from Hyderabad and is exactly in the dense reserved forest area between Vikarabad and Tandur. Anantagiri hills got their name from the temple of Sree Ananta Padmanabha Swamy, also is a place where the Musi river originates and is a place of interest for Trekking as well as nature lovers. The Telagana tourism department built a resort here and it is also sometimes referred to as Hill Station of Telangana. There is accommodation available right beside the temple on pay and use basis where I noticed people from Karnataka stay to complete their "vrata".

To know more about the history of the temple, read the Wikipedia page and the Telangana Tourism page about the place and the temple.

As you can notice, the picture is taken from half the height of the
temple. We need to take stairs to go down and then into the
temple. Further down the stairs, there lies the "Pushkarini"

The temple is small, the sanctum is similar as that of Yadagirigutta temple. The Lord is not an idol but a "Shaaligramam" and lie inside a cave in the sanctum. However, an idol of the Lord is also worshiped in other side of the temple. The place is very peaceful with no long queues although I visited on a Saturday. So we can assume, it is even less dense on weekdays. There are few places in the temple that made me remind that this temple was built by Nizams. The timings of the temple are shown below.

Everyday from 7:30 AM to 1 PM
and 3 PM till 8 PM.

The swamy Pushkarini (the holy pond), lies few meters below the actual height of the temple and is connected with the temple with stairs. A shrine is built where Maharshi Markandeya did meditation and is also located on these steps. I have not been to trekking and so I could not see the water falls as well as fresh water streams but they are the places of interest for the adventurists. We started to the temple from Hyderabad around 9:30 AM and we are back home by 3:30 PM on same day while the mode of travel is car. If you wish to take public transport, you can opt for the TSRTC buses which are destined to Tandur. Food is available in the resort mentioned above. Having said that, it is a great picnic spot for a family get together and potlucks.

I hope I did not miss any information but I will update if I find something more about it.