Journey to The Mountain Goddess of India

02:40 Travel 0 Comments

It's been over 8 years that I visited the holy shrine of Mata Vaishno Devi in Katra, Jammu and Kashmir.I
along with my family and friends planned a journey for the month of April to avoid the cold winter breeze. My dad hired an Innova for our journey till Katra. It took us more than 7 hours to reach our destination, post which we marched on foot after a bit of rest in a nearby hotel. I must admit the walk took a toll on us as we started for the 14 km never ending steep steps towards the temple. Whenever we reached a turn, like a mirage, it seemed the temple was just a few minutes away but it took us good 2-3 hours to reach the gate of one of the most worshiped pilgrimages of the country on foot. On our way we took a bit of rest here and there since we had a few old aged people with us. I saw many devotees literally crawling and walking on foot without any shoes on the rocky path shouting 'Jai Mata Di' on top of their voice. I was both amazed and touched to see their devotion towards the Mother Goddess. As we reached the temple premises, we saw a long queue outside the gate of the temple mounting to thousands of darshanarthi (devout). Luckily, my dad had VVIP passes for the entry and within a few minutes we were escorted towards another entry for a holistic view of the Devi. After
paying homage to the mother we started back for Katra. The journey back was more tiring since we had not rested or eaten anything for almost a day but our inner strength by God's grace kept rising and nothing could stop us. We stopped feeling the cold breeze, hunger, thirst, body pain, all the vices, all the agony seemed to have vanished after witnessing the holy Pind of Mata Vaishno Devi. Somehow we managed our way back to the hotel and immediately headed towards home since we had no time to rest because of professional leaves crunch for most of the companions in the trip.