How was your Darshan?

As Wikipedia quotes - "This temple is the richest pilgrimage center, after the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram, of any faith and the most-visited place of worship in the world.This temple is visited by about 50,000 to 100,000 pilgrims daily (30 to 40 million people annually on average), making it the most-visited holy place in the world". Everybody wants to go here, from Big B to Vijay Mallaya, who is reported to have flown all the aeroplanes that he buys to Tirumala, and performs some special poojas . There are various types of darshans provided at this temple, and I had read somewhere that the Tirumala trust is pondering over scrapping few variants of darshans, after numerous requests from the general public.

Some of the darshans offered by Tirumala :

Vaikuntam Queue Complex

Sarvadarsanam

Special Entry Darshan 

Sudarsanam Token System

Special Darshan for the Physically Disabled and the Aged
(Note : They had mentioned the word "Disabled" in their website)

Divya Darshan

Apart from the special darshan for the Physically challenged and the Aged, I don't see a reason for the other types of darshans .I have visited this temple only once, and that was way back in the year, 2001. The trip was supposed to be a one day affair, but as we were not able to get the darshan appointment on the same day, we had to wait for one more day. The scheduled darshan time for us was 4:30 am, and we had to spend a sleepless night as we had to go and wait in the queue at 3 am or earlier.As I waited along in the queue along with several thousands for a couple of hours, I grew increasingly restless. Then finally with "god's" grace, we were finally pushed into the main temple after a four hour wait, which seemed like eternity. I was able to see Mr.Venky at last, and my mother kept saying that there was a divine light that she could see in his eyes ! With priests shouting and waving us away with the all time popular "Jarugandi" lines, we spent a couple of seconds gazing at the idol and we were pushed off, into crowds. Finally, we were out of the temple and I breathed a sigh of relief. Some people who had come along with us, were elaborating that their darshan had been totally divine and that they had been so lucky to have a darshan on the 14th of April. I wondered what the big fuss was all about. 

Though I am non-religious and non-spiritual, I respect the principles of Hinduism. We seem to have misunderstood Hinduism, at the grass root levels. Hinduism was never a religion, it is a way of life. I don't want to challenge the beliefs of other religious people. I respect your beliefs and your faith, but why would you want to visit highly commercialized establishments that run in the name of "Temples"? They have made a mockery of Hinduism. I had a friend who visited Tirumala along with his family on a VIP darshan recently, and he told me that he had a great darshan and they were absolutely no queues. The concept of paid darshans is more prevalent in the south of our country. When I had been to popular temples in north India, the concept of paid darshans were not present. If you truly believe and if you have read the Hindu scriptures, never does it say that it is a must to visit temples. It also very clearly states that God is present everywhere, and not just at temples.There are countless number of temples which are older than Tirupathi, not only are they ancient, but they are architectural marvels. Then, why the craze for few temples, in particular? I had been to many old Shiva temples at kanchipuram, and I was shocked to find them sparsely crowded. The Nellai appar temple at my native place, tirunelveli is not very popular but the fact is that it is larger than the famed Madurai Meenakshi temple, and it's architecture is equally fascinating, complete with musical pillars. The Ajanta & the Elloras, the Thanjavur big temple are other classic examples. Our craze for some temples would never end, atleast the trust that controls Tirupati should seriously consider abolishing such ridiculous systems.It is really bad, when there is so much bias at such a popular religious destination. The rich and the famous can have the darshan hassle-free while the poor, the middle class and others suffer. Should we be atleast happy that the Indian government did not introduce a quota system for the Tirumala darshans?