This Hyderabad trip was a familial obligation, yet we tried to squeeze in few places. April is the worst time to visit the city as temperature was soaring at about 45 degrees. The first thing we decided to do is visit Birla Mandir in the evening when the climate is not too harsh and little breezy. And it is well-known that the temple looks its best when brightly lit up and illuminates to the perfection. Here we were told the temple will close at 8 and we still stuck in Hyderabad's weekend traffic and it is already 7:40. Cursing ourselves for not checking timings beforehand, we decided to give it a try anyway. We heaved a sigh of relief as we saw the timings, the closing time is 9 P.M.
The road to reach the temple is very narrow and congested with devotees all over the place. The ideal thing is to park the vehicle at Birla Science Museum and Planetarium complex and walk to Mandir. It may be around 1 KM. But, we drove till the temple as we did not know how far it is and few vehicles were moving ahead of us. Here is a small parking area and we were lucky to get the space. If we didn't, imagine we driving back all the way to the first parking area and walking to the temple.
There are few shops selling Pooja items (offerings to deity) like coconuts, flowers, fruits; idols of various gods; devotional CDs; photos; toys; accessories, etc. Mobiles, camera, bags, any electronic gadgets are not allowed inside the temple. Hence, we left everything inside the vehicle including footwear. Nonetheless, there are lockers to deposit valuables.
Birla Mandir is built atop 280 feet Naubat Pahad dedicated to Lord Venkateshwara. It is said to be made of 2000 tonnes of pure white Rajasthani marble. The architecture is a combination of Dravidian, Rajasthani, and Utkala. It was completed in 1976 and it took nearly 10 years to do so. As the name suggests it was constructed by Birla Foundation, which has 17 other temples in various parts of India, all of them are known as Birla Mandir.
There are two shrines dedicated to consorts of presiding deity, Venakateshwara, Padmavathi and Andal. The temple also houses shrines for other gods such as Shiva, Ganesh, Saraswathi, Hanuman, Brahma, Lakshmi, Saibaba. It was crowded and our weariness in standing queue forced us to miss the sanctum sanctum sanctorum.
Two important things to be noted here are; one, missing of regular temple bells as Swamin Ranganathananda of Ramakrishna Mission who sanctified the temple is of the opinion that temple's ambiance should be appropriate for meditation. Clearly this man couldn't foresee the enormous crowd and meditation is the last think in their mind; the second one, we have read it somewhere that this temple was the first one to allow each and every persons without differentiating them for their cast, creed, gender, or religion. And the entry is free.
The focal point, however, is the breathing panoramic view of the city from here. The vision of Hussain Sagar and its Buddha statue in middle is captivating. For a minute, we almost forgot it is summer in Hyderabad with wind blowing, lit up city in front of you, and illuminating marble wonder behind.
How to Reach: Easily accessible by road. If you are driving on your own, google map will help you out. Lakdi-Ka-Pul Station is just 1 KM from this temple.
Timings: 7 a.m.-12 p.m. and 3 p.m.-9 p.m.
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