Some gods grant riches and others good luck, but one deity in India offers a much less nebulous fortune to his devotees: tickets to a new life in the United States.
More than 1,000 Hindu faithful visit the Chilkur Balaji temple each day in the belief that the divine presence inside can bless worshippers with a successful visa application.
Those seeking a shot at the American Dream are instructed to pray for their permission to travel abroad, and to return to give thanks when they receive it.
“Every single member of my family who is in the United States has come here,” Satwika Kondadasula said while walking around the temple’s sanctum.
The 22-year-old said that moving to New York was a longstanding dream.
She will head there this week to start her master’s degree and says she has the deity Balaji in part to thank.
“I got the visa because of my capability of course, but I have luck of god as well,” she said.
“I definitely believe coming here really helped me out.”
Balaji is considered an incarnation of Vishnu, one of the key gods of the Hindu pantheon known for upholding the cosmic order of the universe.
The temple bearing his name on the outskirts of Hyderabad was not always known as a conduit for international travel.
Its elderly priest CS Gopalakrishna discovered in 1984 that water spontaneously appeared before a shrine to the god when he walked around the perimeter of the temple’s sanctum 11 times.
Word spread and people began visiting the temple to offer wishes for happy marriages, children or successfully navigating the cut-throat admissions process to India’s top colleges.
Over the decades, devotees came to believe the shrine was particularly effective helping Indians seeking to leave the country – so much so that it came to be locally known as the “visa temple”.
Pilgrims emulate Gopalakrishna’s 11 laps around the temple sanctum, returning later if their wishes are fulfilled to circumnavigate it a further 108 times as an expression of gratitude.
The ritual demands precision. Visitors chanting Balaji’s name in unison keep track of the longer walk with the aid of yellow sheets of paper marked with numbered boxes given out by the temple.
Gopalakrishna says that divine intervention is not guaranteed, and his god helps those who help themselves. — AFP
