The birth pangs of Telangana State were felt here by devotees who frequent the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) temple at Vyalikaval. Thousands of devotees throng the temple every Saturday when the laddoos procured from the main temple in Tirumala are distributed here. However, they had to return disappointed last Saturday as the laddoos did not arrive.
According to a TTD official, the temple was not able to procure laddoos owing to the anti-Telangana protests in the Rayalseema region of Andhra Pradesh. “We do not anticipate any problem in the stock reaching us this Saturday,” he said. The laddoos are sent from Tirumala every Friday afternoon by road and reach the city early on Saturday at around 3 a.m. They are distributed at the temple here from 6.30 a.m. till the stock lasts, the official said.
He said that every week, the TTD temple here gets 7,000 laddoos. It has been selling the laddoos at the same rate at which it is sold in Tirumala — Rs. 25 apiece. “We pre-order the excess quantity whenever we anticipate huge rush. The number of devotees swells during new year, Vaikunta Ekadasi and all through the Hindu month of Shravana,” he added.
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Poornima B.R., a resident of Palace Guttahalli, visits the temple every Saturday. She said that last Saturday, she was surprised to see a board that stated that the laddoos would not be distributed. “We do not buy the laddoos every week. But last Saturday, we wanted to buy, but had to return empty handed.”