![\"Tanur](\"http:\/\/www.amritapuri.org\/photos\/0902tanur\/tanur20.jpg\")
<\/p>\nIt was Amma’s first visit to\u00a0 the city of Tanur, and one could discern the accumulated longing and the enthusiasm of the waiting devotees pouring out on that auspicious occasion. As I was coming out, bleary eyed, early in the morning for my cup of tea, I could barely believe my eyes when I saw the venue already half full, even though the program was to begin only late in the evening.\u00a0 Being a part of the crowd control team, my first reaction was that\u00a0 it was going to be a long and arduous day ahead\u00a0 trying to keep this overly eager crowd in \u2018control\u2019 \u2013 marred by confusion and chaos. Well, as\u00a0 it turned out, the only thing that was dented was my imperceptive presumption. We were to witness one of the largest and most well ordered crowds in recent memory.<\/p>\n
They were here to wait as long as it was needed. The sun rose up, sizzled and came down again \u2013\u00a0 the patient waiting continued. As it got too hot to sit, they gathered under some trees, but not before ensuring that they would not lose their coveted seats \u2013 reserving it with just about anything \u2013 books, shoes, hair clips, mobile number written on a piece of paper, even stones and twigs. The kitchen had immediately set out to provide lunch and dinner to all of them \u2013 free of charge.<\/p>\n
By\u00a0 evening , people were sitting on the fence, and over it. As the sun came down,\u00a0 Light came in \u2013 Amma arrived and instantaneously the weariness of the waiting devotees dissolved. When we set out to give out the Darshan tokens \u2013 the delight and the reverence on their faces as they received it was really touching.\u00a0 All this for that one moment of true Love! Some even did not know what we were giving these tokens for.\u00a0 \u201cWill Amma see ME?\u201d, one woman asked.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s what she\u2019s here for\u201d, I replied.\u00a0 She looked skeptical, but I am sure she must have got her answer.<\/p>\n
As Darshan started, Amma Herself implored the people to be patient, have their food and come back and remain seated till their respective numbers turned up on the board. These devotees\u00a0 really took to their hearts this piece of advice. The sun rose the next morning, and we could still find men, women and children, even babies still glued to their respective\u00a0 seats that they had been occupying for nearly 24 hours. It was morning, but the combined length of the darshan queue was still almost\u00a0 half a kilometer.\u00a0 Ever attentive to the smallest discomfort of the devotees, Amma\u00a0 asked for shades to be put up to protect those standing in the queue in the sun.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A devotee came and asked if his number had come. We told him\u00a0 it would – in just a short time. \u201cBut it WILL come, no?\u201d, he asked with expectant eyes. Yes, I thought –\u00a0 it surely would. That is one promise which keeps us all going.
\nThe marathon darshan finally ended around noon.\u00a0 Though we are used to it \u2013 still every time we are\u00a0 touched when we see Amma giving so much for our sake.<\/p>\n
A woman, clad in burqa, was in tears as Amma was leaving, and she jumped across the barricades (that we had believed were foolproof!) in order to have one last glimpse of Amma as she was leaving. Well, Love knows no barricades \u2013 of religion, race, caste or planets. Even as Amma was leaving, she blessed some prasad, and asked everyone to partake of it before going home.<\/p>\n
All this while, there was a huge army of volunteers tirelessly serving day in and out. It seemed that they were trying to compensate for the fact that it was going to be\u00a0 just a one day program . The students of Amrita Vidyalam, Tanur were there all over the place offering water to the devotees. The kitchen volunteers worked 24X7 to ensure that all were fed breakfast, lunch, dinner and then again breakfast –\u00a0 with enough balance to take home for lunch too. Tens of thousands of chairs, that I thought were going to take a lot of time, were unloaded, set up and then again loaded in a jiffy. The cleaning volunteers ensured that the place looked cleaner than when it started. And a whole team of them whose silent service only Amma would know.<\/p>\n
In the end, it turned out to be a lesson. The devotees were so very patient even though all they might have been looking for is a couple of seconds in Amma\u2019s lap. In the pressure cooker called\u00a0 \u2018Amma\u2019s tour\u2019, I had forgotten that it is such a blessing to be near Amma, to be able to approach Amma whenever we feel like, to be able to serve Her devotees, to rest assured that ALL our needs will be well taken\u00a0 care of, to have chai stops, just to be\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n
– Mukesh<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was Amma’s first visit to\u00a0 the city of Tanur, and one could discern the accumulated longing and the enthusiasm of the waiting devotees pouring out on that auspicious occasion. As I was coming out, bleary eyed, early in the morning for my cup of tea, I could barely believe my eyes when I saw […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[73,640,142,645,140],"class_list":["post-1466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-with-amma","tag-by2009","tag-darshan","tag-devotion","tag-seva","tag-tanur"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1466\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}