Padmavathi I.
Google
The temple is very divine and the murti of Venkateswara Bhagavan is very divine as well. The temple has multiple smaller murtis of various deities around the inner sanctum of the temple. Construction work is still being performed, but the temple’s infrastructure is very good. The pujas performed by the priests are very traditional and per shastras. However, my only problem with this temple, and the main reason I do not visit it often, is the volunteers. In my opinion, they seem to be rude and disrespectful. A while back, during Goda Kalayanam, a volunteer lady angrily told my 13-year old son, who was sitting in the last row of the auditorium on the floor, to get up and leave by tapping very hardly on his shoulder. She told him he was blocking the door, which was ten feet behind him. He quietly left and stood at the very back of the room. But as soon as he left, the volunteer lady talked to a 20 year-old looking woman who spoke in Telegu and seated her where my son was sitting. My son, who was at this point standing, was then sent out of the auditorium by an another volunteer because “there was no space”. Despite this they were still admitting people into the auditorium. Finally, when I tried to enter the auditorium, they said the room had reached maximum occupancy, yet the volunteer up front continued to let entire families of 5-6 people inside the auditorium when they spoke Telegu to him. In my opinion, I feel this a larger trend among volunteers of SV Lotus temple to favor people speaking Telegu at the expense of others. I feel this type of discriminatory-seeming behavior is wrong and should not occur in a holy temple of Lord Venkateshwara. Are these volunteers working to serve God or to serve their own language communities? I felt very humiliated and hurt to be treated as a secondary group by the volunteers.
Edit: It seems to me that moment I wrote this review, all the Telegu board members of the temple have scrambled to write fake 5 star reviews so they can hid my review. Notice that the haven’t taken any steps to refute or take down review. This, to me, proves that the board members discriminate against non-Telegus. For Telegu people reading this, this review is not meant to criticize your community, but the discrimination SOME, not all, Telegu board members and volunteers are committing. Please help in calling out these people. I hope more people become vocal about this.
