My journey commenced from Pune (around 2500 KM from Jammu). We passed through fields of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi, Punjab and J and K. We were six friends traveling together. We went to Jammu by train (Jhelum express) from Pune. It took around 40 hours to reach Jammu. We passed through Agra (We were desperately waiting for this place to come as we spend our four years here for B.tech graduation), Delhi (Here we mate with our few friends after two years). In our entire journey, we had a tons of funs like we played cards games (Bluff, Teen pati n many more). Also we enjoyed this entire trip with poor jokes of CID.... Uday Singh (As ACP pradumaan) and Akash (As DAYA). Pjs were main attraction of our entire trip.
From Jammu to Katra:
We were welcomed by heavy rain at Jammu railway station. We booked a cab from Jammu. We braved several diversion , weather and awesome Lunch at way side Dhabas. It took us approximately 2 hours to reach katra. After reaching Katra, We booked a Hotel for rest and for other things.
Mission Darshan:
We decided climbing up the hill during the night. It is preferable to climb up the hill (13 km uphill route) during the night as it is less tiresome as the temperature is more acceptable than during the day. We obtained the ticket to go to the shrine from the J&K Govt. run ticket office at Katra. You can walk , take a copter ,weather permitting, ( Rs 4000 to and fro) , take a pony or a doli which four people carry and pay according to your body weight from Rs 300 onwards. The copter ride takes just a few minutes. There is an interesting side to this visit to Mata shrine as to how it materialized. This was my third visit to Mata shrine. The first one was in 2007 and second in 2009. Both were wonderful experiences and hence I had a strong urge to visit once more.
At the start of the yatra is a bathing point called the Banganga where pilgrims have a holy bath. Due to security reasons, one has to cross several check points and barriers. The late music aficionado Gulshan Kumar conducts a bhandara or free food distribution (langar) for devotees every day and the daily expense could be running into thousands. Such is the family’s belief in Mata. The 13.5 km journey has a mid-route stop over at Ardhkwari. Of course there are several resting points along the journey and any pilgrim can take any number of halts , sip coffee at Coffee day , or Government run shops , have snacks, fruits etc. Several shops sell various eatables along the way. On the way as you start climbing up, one comes across temples devoted to Saint of Shirdi , Sad guru Sai baba , Mata’s Charan paduka (holy feet), Gayatri Gita Mata , Siva , Ganesha and Durgadevi. Several monkeys are seeing jumping around and so long as you don’t harm or tease them, they are to themselves.
At Ardhkwari we touched base at 11-45 PM and the queue for going through the “garbhajoon” was long enough. Current running waiting number was 287 and our group number was 390 and we thought that it would take only 1.5 hours in waiting. But suddenly our plan got changed and we started climbing up without darshen at Ardhkwari. It was a wise decision, when we were returning back from bhawaan; we saw that waiting number at Ardhkwari was 375. It was shocking because it has been around 12 hours and we were expecting that our waiting number would have been crossed but still we were 15 numbers behind.
While climbing Up, after Ardhkwari, we have to climb around 6 Km more to reach bhawaan. We started our further climbing in two groups. It took only 30 minutes s for us to reach "Sanchi Chaat (Mid way in between Ardhkwari and bhawan). After Sanchi chat we had to climb down only. At around 3:00 AM we reached to bhawaan. In our entire trip, we were taking snaps of ours, huffing and puffing, making lots of PJs.
After reaching to bhawaan, we directly went for cold water bath; few of us changed our cloths. After that we proceeded to purchase prasad and after that for divine Darshan.
After the Darshan which happened in dawn of day just before Aarti , we were feeling fulfilled.
Next morning, having completed this leg of the journey we completed the darshan of Bhairavnath which is up hill from Bhawan at a distance of 2.5 km. No yatra to Mata is supposed to be complete unless you pay your respects at Bhairav nath. Hence a visit to Bhairav nath is a Must. From here our downward descent commenced feeling satisfied, fulfilled and blessed.
Actually it was a gift from me to my mother on her b’day.
