In the past few years a Balaji temple in Chilkur village outside Hyderabad has become the pilgrimage destination for US visa-seekers. When President Bush went to Hyderabad to inaugurate a new US consulate I wonder if someone told him the story of Andhra Pradesh’s American visa temple. They actually can take the honors in this blog of having the temple that has been most popular of the all three. If West(Gujarat) and North India(Delhi) can boast of their own temples, how can Hyderabad be left out. You do need to see it before your read on… When I was shared the picture, I decided to do some research on the temple and then came across the video. This temple too is of the Visa God – Hanuman and well, you just need to “check out” the “counselor” at the Temple to decide (I am talking of the “unusual” priestess) and also hear her out in the video on this link…Ī friend of mine who is an Immigration expert was asked whether he can guarantee the visa and in his humorous response he simply shared the photo below with the student. However, the most “interesting” (!) temple turns out to be where all the High Commissions and the Embassies are located. ‘Visa Hanuman’ attends to the needs of dozens of visa aspirants every day.īut his counseling sessions are packed on Saturdays, with nearly 750 people filing their appeals for his consideration. The devout who throng the shrine swear that their deity guarantees 100% visa approval for any foreign country.Īnd they are especially grateful because no processing or consultancy fee is charged. This is how an article in DNA introduced me to the KHADIA TEMPLE in Ahmedabad, Gujarat and the newspaper also informs that it has had a 100% success record (!!!). So for Lord Hanuman it is no challenge to organize visas for his devotees, which for frequent-flying mortals is a forbidding procedure complicated by the monkey business of agents and mystifying forms. And so… it is not unnatural that those seeking visas take his blessings… after all… He flew into Sri Lanka when it had no airport or immigration authority, and moved a whole mountain to complete a fig of a task.