Hi friends my name is Ravindranath. By the grace of Shirdi Sai Baba , i went to Shirdi Padayatra from Hyderabad 9 times. This happened only because of the wishes of Sai Baba . I never thought I could visit Shirdi by walk. But with the blessings of Sai Baba i have fulfilled my dreams. My like minded friends who use to perform bhajan program at Punjagutta Sai Baba temple at Hyderabad also voluntarily followed me and we all made the program successfully. During the journey we encountered little bit of difficulties but we were able to face it with the help of Sai Baba’s grace. Chanting sai namam “om sai sri sai jaya jaya sai ” we carried on with our padayatra from Hyderabad to Shirdi, covering a distance of 650kms by walk.
| PADAYATRA | PARTICIPANTS | TOTAL DAYS TAKEN |
| FIRST– 1996 | 02 | 26 |
| SECOND–1998 | 02 | 24 |
| THIRD–1999 | 03 | 18 |
| FOURTH–2000 | 15 | 16 |
| FIFTH– 2001 | 06 | 16 |
| SIXTH–2002 | 07 | 16 |
| SEVENTH–2004 | 14 | 14 |
| EIGHTH–2006 | 02 | 14 |
| NINTH– 2008 | 03 | 14 |
Dwarakamai is always open for Sai devotee. Do chant Sai namam and read the Sai Satcharitra daily. Sai Baba is with every second. don’t think that Sai is at Shirdi only. This is false. Baba is with you only. Sai is settled in your heart, so you do not tell lies, do not think bad. Always chant sai namam ” om sai sri sai jaya jaya sai”. We are awaiting further padayatra. if baba gives permission then we ready to start next journey. while padayatra we met many devotees from Karnatak and Maharashtra. They were really good devotees of Shirdi Sai Baba. While walking during the yatra we were also chanting vishnusaharsanamam, hanuman chalisa, sai songs, bhajans …..and so on. The route for Hyderabad to Shirdi padayatra is via highway number 9, nh9. We stayed at Sai temples, Hanuman Temples,Shri Ram Temple, temple of Pandarinath, Durga, and Lakshmi temples. We got there very good response, like they treat us as real Sai devotees, because we performed Sai Bhajan in every temple we stayed. The Sai photo graph in this article was carried in our journey. Our every foot step was decided by Shirdi Sai only, we were nothing. In our padayatra, only male members participeted. But, in next padayatra we would like to go with male and female Sai devotees who are interested in walking to Shirdi from Hyderabad, coverin a distance of 650 km on foot to Shirdi. Every day morning 4 am we would start our journey to Shirdi, at 7am we would take a little break for brushing teeth and freshening up and then continue walking up to 9 am. Have breakfast, tea or milk and then continue further journey. At midtime 12 noon our team would perform satsung, take a little break like tea or milk with biscuits and then continue journey padayatra up to 2pm and then have a 2 hours break for lunch. Sometimes we prepared our own meals with daal and some time we ate at roadside dhabas. During our Hyderabad to Shirdi Padayatra, all padayatris prefer having only vegetarian food like tanduri rotis, palak panneer, daal, rice, curd rice, jeera rice etc. and after lunch we again walk for a couple of hours only to take a break for tea coffee at 5pm. It is after this break that when we start walking we would keep looking out for temples where we could take a night halt. We would search for temples and if temples are at long distance from the highway then we would look out for schools. We preferred to take a night halt by 7pm. By the grace of Sai Baba, everytime we got good accommodation. Most of the time, we stayed at temples only. This was the every day protocol. With the help of Sai Baba’s blessing we all devotees were able to successfully reach Shirdi and got excellent darshan of Shri Shirdi Sai Baba. The Shirdi Sai Sansthan welcomed us and gave a good response and darshan. We really are thankful to them where we stayed and got prasadam during our journey to Shirdi on foot. I can never forgot this 650 kms padayatra to Shirdi from Hyderabad.
A note of thanks to my bhajan mandal friends who believed in this padayatra and made it a success. Names of the friends and members who participated in Shirdi Padayatra:
Anand, Mallesh, Mohan, Ramu, Asirinaidu, Suri, Chinna asirinaidu, Prasad, Krishna Rao, Thaudu, Chinna, Bandodu, Shyam, Bobby, Santosh,and Balaram…..
Here are the contact details of the padayatris:
Ravindranath : 08125258021
gmail: rpokkula@gmail.com
Anand : 7893729733,8008461761
Santhosh : 8712889451,9581074614,9966574578,7396407735
Asiri chinna : 09502796478
Asiri naidu : 09533366986
Suri :9703237332,9505039221
All the sai devotees, I am humbly requesting you to belive the above story as fact. We met so many of Sai devotees during our padayatra and collected their experiences of Sai Leelas.
It is only by the blessings of Sai Baba that we reached shirdi by walk.
Feel free to call me, I will share my padayatra experience 24×7, at any time, I am ready to talk with you.
Om Sai Sri Sai Jaya Jaya Sai.