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My friend dhania(dinesh) was visibly quite nervous at that night as he was
having some hard time. I just asked him that if at such times its better to
remember the almighty. Suddenly the plan for shirdi came up and the next night
we two packed our bag and took a bus ride to shirdi. We got into the bus right
opposite our college. I was very much excited as I`v heard of the baba since
childhood and having plan to visit in my mind since long. We reached shirdi by
early morning at around 4 am. I tell you that this is the best time to come for
darshan as later the very very long queue can make you very nervous. It took us
nearly 4 hour to have the darshan. The temple was quite well decorated and it
hardly gives feeling that this was the place where one "Fakir baba" gave his
blessings to the people. I was very very light in my mind and this was the much
needed peace in my mind (I was also having very rough time as having some backlogs and extended projects). We had tea outside and then decided to visit
"Shani-shegaon". This is supposedly the only temple of "Shani Bhagvan". The
place is 60 kms from shirdi and one has to hire local taxis to get there. When
we reached there, we saw that the people do not lock their doors there. Very strange but its a matter of faith. But be careful there, as the local shopkeepers can take out most out of our wallet. There we were offered "Puja-thali" costing 250 bucks per head. But we finally settled for offering
oil and flower only. Earlier women were not allowed at that place, now there is
no such restrictions. We got back to shirdi at around 12 pm. From there we
decided to visit "Trimbakeshwar (one of the 12 holy jyotriling of shiva)". We had our lunch in shirdi and took a bus to nashik. The day was bery humid by that
time. We reached nashik in 2 hours. We again took bus from nashik road st. to
trimbkeshwar. The ride was of only around 30 mins. The temple was very beautifully carved out. There was also a very long queue for inside so we ditched the idea of darshan and gave our puja offerings to one lady standing in
the queue. From there we went to the hill right behind the temple. There at the
hill lies two holy shrines. My friend found it quite hard to negotiate the ladder steps leading there. He is not much athaletic. We finally got back
to the trimbakeshwar by evening. The genreal atmo there was very appeacing.
We just roam around in the town till 8 pm and then took a taxi tide back to
nashik. From nashik we took train back to kalyan. We were at kalyan at after
midnight. So we wait there till 4 am for the first local train.
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