Tirupati, February 14: At the most pressing of times, officials of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) are a rather stoic sort, quite used to sudden surges of devotees. The temple’s systems are well geared towards meeting unexpected spikes in demand for laddus and such like.
Today, however, there was consternation among devotees at Akhilandam opposite the temple when the TTD’s pooja paraphernalia counters ran out of coconuts.
The tradition of breaking a coconut and lighting camphor is customary at any Hindu shrine, but it is religiously followed at Akhilandam before going in for a darshan of the deity or immediately after coming out.
The sudden inrush of pilgrims over the two-day weekend led to depletion of stocks at the four counters by 9 am this morning. As devotees continued to stream in, officials ran around in mild panic to procure fresh stocks from the warehouses. There was bad news there as well.
Disappointed devotees said they never expected even the Tirumala temple to run out of coconuts. Many made do with burning camphor.
Discreet enquiries revealed that stocks at the four TTD counters do get exhausted sometimes, particularly when there is a heavy rush during holidays and festivals.
Sources said the problem is caused by the procedure being followed to replenish the stock or sometimes due to the apathy of the staff either at the counter or in the godown.
At any given point of time, 10,000 coconuts are stocked at the four counters. During the peak season, the requirement goes up to 25,000.
Today, Tirumala witnessed a heavy rush of pilgrims due to the two-day weekend but officials manning the coconut counters failed to gauge the demand.
According to sources, there are only three or four private vendors, apart from the four under the control of TTD, engaged in selling a limited number of coconuts to devotees in the Akhilandam area.
Whenever there is no stock at the TTD-run counters, the private vendors try to take advantage of the situation.
Devotees Express spoke to said waiting for hours in queues for accommodation, darshan and prasadam has become the norm at Tirumala. It would be too much to expect pilgrims to wait for coconuts as well, one devotee said.
–Agencies