Spiritual India in Chicago

This summer, I also got an opportunity to visit couple of Indian temples in and around Chicago, which I earnestly wanted to go to since I came here. Last weekend, I visited ‘Sri Venkateswara Swami Temple’.






This temple is located in the south of Chicago. My friend, Sneha, and I took BSNF Metra (http://metrarail.com/metra/en/home.html), which is used to travel within the state of Illinois. We started at 7 in the morning, took 8.30 am train from Union station on Canal Street. The train journey from Chicago downtown to Aurora railway station is of approximately one hour. It takes 10 minutes by cab to reach to the temple, and approximately 30 minutes by foot. We chose to go by a cab.
The shrine is very beautiful; it is built in traditional south Indian style and resembles the holy Balaji Temple of Tirupathi. The temple was extremely calm and pleasant with devotees trickling along. The silence in the temple accentuated the rhythmic chanting of ‘shlokas’(Indian religious prayers and songs) by the sages. The chants filled my heart with tremendous positivity and strength. After the prayers, we sat in the temple for a while enjoying the divine and ethereal beauty of the temple. After ‘darshana’ (prayers and offerings) we went to the temple’s canteen to have some South-Indian snack. We had ‘Idli’ - a south Indian savory cake popular throughout India (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idli), ‘Medu-Vada’ – (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medu_vada), and ‘Sambar’ - a vegetable stew or chowder based on a broth made with tamarind (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambar_(dish)). The snack reminded me of India so much that I truly miss everything……sometimes!!

There is also ‘Shirdi Sai Samsthan Temple’ in the vicinity, so we chose to walk down to the Sai temple - http://www.saisamsthanusa.org/newsite/aboutus.htm.

We reached there by noon and got to attend the afternoon prayers. This temple is simple single storied with a big idol of 'Lord Sai’. The idol is placed in the main hall, and it resembles the one at Shirdi, India. After the afternoon prayers were over they served ‘prasad’ (snack served at temple) of tamarind rice, lemon rice, porridge, and yoghurt rice. At this temple, the food is usually prepared at the temple, or sometimes it is a potluck lunch by the devotees. After a wonderful lunch at the temple we called for a cab and took 2.20 pm Metra (BSNF) back to downtown Chicago. It was one of the divine Sundays, spent in the holy temples, enjoying the essence of spiritual India in Chicago.