TIRUPATI, INDIA, August 3, 2008: The hill temple of Lord Venkateswara wore a deserted look on Friday following solar eclipse. Usually on any given day not less than 60,000 pilgrims throng the hill shrine but on Friday owing to the solar eclipse, few turned up. All the 54 compartments in Vaikuntam Queue Complex-I and II, which are generally occupied completely, not even five were fullly occupied as there were many less pilgrims waiting for darshan. Still, a handful means over a thousand people when one talks about Tirupati.
The temple doors were closed after an abhishekam was performed at around 9:30 am. The temple remained closed for 10 hours. The doors werebe opened only after 7:30 pm after ‘Suddhi Samprokshanam’ was performed to rid of the negative impact of eclipse. Even the temple kitchen (potu) was closed due to the eclipse. As per shastras, the eclipse would spoil food items. So we did not prepare prasadam,” said an official. The eclipse badly affected the business of traders on the hill shrine.