The Great Indian Walmart

Which was my favorite experience among the lot? The '5-second darshan and push everyone around you' experience at Tirupati; the 30-minute traffic snarl at Bangalore airport arrival lane at 12 midnight; or being one among (I am guessing) over 10,000 shoppers at the Saravana store, T-Nagar, Chennai.

Tirupati, the most visited place in the world, is a world-renowned place of worship and you most certainly expect crowds on each day that the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west. But our visit was special. Ex-CM Chandrababu Naidu decided to have his 'Mahanadu convention' at Tirupati at the same time, and this made everything difficult during our darsanam. For the first time, there were queues to get out of the temple after offering our prayers. My mind wandered to think what would happen if there were a stampede right there as we exited the temple premises.

Everyone knew Bangalore as a beautiful city of gardens, pleasant weather and helpful people. Now, I know Bengalooru as a place where you need at least an hour to get to any place, no matter how close it is. Bangalore was never planned to be a metro like Chennai, and now it seems that it cannot handle the pressures thrust upon it by the IT personnel influx that only seems to be increasing with each arriving flight (by what I saw at the airport that night).

One surprisingly magnificent experience was shopping at Saravana stores, where I happened to enter to buy some essentials. 7 floors, over 1000 customers on each floor, over 100 attendants on each floor, mind-boggling variety in almost everything you can think about: fruits, sarees, shirts, suits, shoes and chappals, plastics, steel, toys, cell phones and more. There is even a superb canteen that caters to the shopper's hungry palate. All prices are well below regular retail stores, so you always get the best deal for any product. What's intriguing is that the store is maintained to handle the madding crowds, check shoplifters, service and returns, very very efficiently. It seems there are people who arrive at Saravana straight from the Chennai railway station and return to their villages directly after their shopping spree, their hands full with those typical jute bags they doll out for bulk shoppers. That day, I got out in a short while, but I promise to return to have a better and longer rendezvous with Saravana.