At the Salasar Balaji temple

Yesterday I went to Salasar early in the morning and returned to Jaipur in the evening. The Salasar Balaji temple is about 35 kms from my native place Sujangarh and about 165 kms from Jaipur.

If there is something that epitomizes growth and popularity, it is this temple complex. The small temple structure housing the idol of Salasar Balaji, which I saw from my childhood, has now grown into a massive temple complex drawing thousands of devotees from near and far. Earlier, we used to do seven to 11 pheris (going round the idol) but now one should consider himself or herself lucky to be in front of the venerated idol for even a minute.
This time when I visited the temple it was Tuesday and there was a huge queue with a waiting period of nearly five hours for darshan. I have seen the change since my childhood and noticed the popularity of the temple increase by leaps and bounds as evident by the ever-swelling stream of devotees.

The temple is owned by private families. Currently there are pujaris from two families, namely Devki and Rajaram, who are the functionaries entrusted with running the temple every alternate year respectively.
On one particular date of the year the responsibilities are switched. I am known to both these families and also because of my friends in the state administration I had the privilege of having a quick darshan followed by tea and prasad. It is for the first time that I got to meet members from both the families in few minutes

While on my way to Salasar and also on my return journey, I halted at the Sikar Circuit House for breakfast and lunch. Whenever I travel to Churu, Salasar, Ladnu, Sujangarh, Ramgarh or Fatehpur or any of the surrounding villages and town, I make it a point to stay at the Sikar Circuit House.
Politically, Sikar is a very sensitive town. The only CPI(M) MLA in Rajasthan, Amara Ram, prior to the last elections was from this area only (file picture). The Sikar town came to the limelight when Chauhary Devilal contested elections from here in 1989 and won (along with Rohtak in Haryana). Later, he went on to become the deputy Prime Minister of India twice under two different coalitions. It was during his tenure that some development took place in this town. 
After arriving in Jaipur yesterday, I had dinner at Peshawari Restaurant at the Rajputana with a bureaucrat friend of mine. The quality of food was better than I expected. Normally the ITC Hotels try to maintain a standardised and similar taste at its Bukhara and Peshawari outlets across India. But some differences do creep in as the chefs have a unique style of their own. But here, I felt the food tasted even better than the other Peshawari joints.  
I had lined up a series of meetings with politicians, bureaucrats, friends and acquaintances in Rajasthan throughout the day. Tomorrow I shall meet the Rajasthan Chief Minister, Mr Ashok Gehlot.
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