Ujjainyam Mahakalomkare Mammaleshwaram- 1st May'09

It began on a summer morning. Sriram started his day around 4am, reached Pune airport from chennai and met me at nagar road by 7am. We boarded a semi-sleeper bus to Nagar(to be specific Daund Chowk). We were happy at the speed of the bus but were disappointed when it stopped for half-an-hour at a hotel. Sriram tasted coffee but had to repent for ordering it. We got down at Daund chowk around 9:30am, took an auto to Meherabad. We spent half-an-hour near the serene samadhi tomb of Avatar Meher baba at Meherabad and returned to Nagar by 10:45 am.

We got into a Karnataka RTC bus at 11am and reached shiridi at 1:30pm. Exhaustion, extreme thirst and dehydration were our constant companions throughout the trip. We enquired about buses to Indore/Omkareshwar. Each travel agency told us the same old story about the fares and the seat availability and opined that it is the only choice we had. We rented a room for Rs300 (we committed to vacate in 5 hours). We were surprised as the room alloted was in 4th floor. We relaxed for a while, went downstairs and paid the advance (300 + 10(service charge)). We hired an auto for Rs90 to take us to sakori and leave us at shiridi. At sakori, we offered pranams to samadhis of sadguru sri upasini maharaj and sri Godavari maatha, kanyakumari matha, ganesha, eeka mukha dattatreya and returned to shiridi.

We savored juice to drench a part of our thirst. We managed to get only one sleeper ticket (one can sit one can sleep). We were eager to attend Sandhya aarthi but shiridi was crowdy on eve of summer holidays, and we could only have a glimpse of the samadhi of Sadguru sri shiridi sai baba. We dined at punnami restaurant and boarded sleeper bus to Indore around 8:15 pm. It started around 9:15pm. The conductor of the bus kept picking up more and more passengers all the way to Indore who were sitting/sleeping/standing across the corridor of the bus. Believe me, It is really tough for 2 persons to adjust in a single sleeper bed for 10 hours. We took turns in sitting and sleeping resulting in body pains, lack of sleep and exhaustion. Around 6am, we were on a Ghat road 70km from Indore. I took some nice pictures through the window. We reached Sarvathe bus station in Indore around 8am.

We boarded a private bus to Omkareshwar at 8:30am. The conductor of this bus kept overloading the bus much to the annoyance of the driver. The journey to omkareshwar includes travel through two ghat roads on vindhyachalam hills and takes 2 hours. Our seat was beside the engine facing the driver. The driver's expression was always like "Oh my God!!! why on earth am I driving this bus". He was constantly frowning, impatient and annoyed with the conductor, the traffic and his occupation. Towards the end of the journey, he became sleepy further scaring us. We reached Omkareshwar by 10:30 am, took a room near the temple, had bath and started for the temple.

Omkareshwara is one of the 12 jyothirlingas. It is located on the shores of narmada river on Vindhyachal hills in MadhyaPradesh. It is 77km from Indore. Once upon a time, when Saint Narada visited Vindhyachal(who was full of pride), Narada tells him that navagrahas revolve around meru hill. Vindhyachal becomes jealous of Meru hill. Narada suggests Vindhyachal to do tapas for Lord Shiva who has navagrahas as his kavacham around his waist. Vindhyachal does tapas and Shiva is impressed by his tapas and asks him to leave pride and blesses him by appearing as 2 swayambu sivalingas viz omkareshwara(pranavaakaara parameshwarudu) and amaleswarudu[one who does not have malam(impurity) We all have 3 malams viz Anava, Karma and Maya] along with Ambhaa.