Chapter 2

The Journey

My itinerary, which I drew out after about 30 minutes of brainstorming, was to fly out straight to Guwahati on day one and visit the Kamakhya Temple on day two. Thereafter, take the evening flight to Kolkata and visit the Kalighat Kali Temple on day three. On day four morning I planned to move to Odisha and on reaching, go straight to the Vimala Temple the same day itself. On day five, I would visit the Taratarini Temple and on day six conclude the journey by visiting the Chausat Yogini Temple at Hirapur.

After having made all my bookings, a thought crossed my mind that probably I should visit a Bhairava Temple as well. I was a regular visitor to the “Pandav Kaleen Shri Kilkari Bhairava” Temple near Old Fort when I worked in Delhi for a few years. It is believed that the temple was built by the Pandavas while they were building their capital at Indraprasta. They are also said to have done the pooja at this temple before the great battle of Mahabharata and that Bheema did a lot of Tapasya and attained Siddhis. The offerings made in this temple are of alcohol and that is also what is distributed as Prasada to all the devotees. One would also see a lot of dogs within the vicinity of the temple complex as they are considered to be the Vahana of Lord Bhairava.

I did some more research on the internet about Bhairava in general. One of the articles mentioned that any pooja or pilgrimage of Shakthi should ideally begin with an offering or devotion to Lord Bhairava since he is the protector of all Shakthi Peeth’s. I wondered as to how I would make it to Delhi, since, there was hardly any room left in my Itinerary to squeeze in a trip. As I sat pondering, I got a call from Delhi from a business associate. I had been inquiring for an appointment with a certain person in Delhi, for a while, and he told me that if I could make it to Delhi the day after, he could fix it up for me. The day after, so happened to be just the day prior to my flight to Guwahati and the plan would sit well with my itinerary. I was elated at having found an answer to my ponder and immediately booked my tickets and hotel for the trip.

Day One

I took an early morning to Delhi, straight away I went to Sujaya and Jayaja’s place in Gurgaon.They are Dr. Alex’s friends in turn a great source for me to relive the spiritual moments had with Dr. Alex. I spent a great morning with them and then checked into my hotel by lunchtime. The evening I met the person with whom I had the appointment and after that, I visited the Pandav Kaleen Shri Kilkari Bhairava Temple and did my pooja to my heart’s content. I have visited this temple several times.

I also met up with a few of my friends and had a good time with them. Later in the evening, I got some time to give some more thought and fine-tune my travel plan. Though the tickets and hotels were all booked I thought it would be a good proposition if I could also have a pre-arranged transportation, a dedicated cab that can take me around in Guwahati. Especially given the fact that I was traveling alone. I decided to reach out to one of my contacts from the All Ladies League (ALL), an association of ambitious and righteous ladies that I was also part of, to help me out. I spoke to my friend, Lekshmi in Bengaluru and after I explained my situation to her, she got me in touch with Alaknanda who was from Guwahati. Alaknanda, was able to arrange not only a dedicated cab but gave me a contact number of a Panditji at the Kamakhya Temple who would assist me when I reach there. She, couldn’t accompany me as she had to be in Delhi due to certain commitments and was apologetic about it.