We reached the NRIs Queue near the Supatham entrance around 11:15 a.m., ready to make use of the NRI darshan facility at Tirumala.

The initial stretch of the line moved at a steady pace, and after about an hour, the queue split into two—one for NRI pilgrims and another for the regular ₹300 ticket holders.

In the NRI line, we were handed a simple form to fill in our names and passport numbers. The checks were minimal. Foreign passport holders were approved after a quick glance, and for those carrying Indian passports, documents like a Green Card or H1B visa were accepted. Interestingly, no one bothered to verify the arrival date in India, though Online guidelines say the darshan is meant for visitors within 30 days of entry.

My daughter, who joined the Infant Darshan queue, noticed something similar—no one checked the birth certificate to confirm whether the baby was under a year old. Only mother’s ID was checked to ensure the parents did not visit in the past 1 month.

Once the paperwork was done, we purchased the ₹300 tickets and continued forward.

The next stretch took almost two more hours, and by the time we had darshan, it had been a little over three hours since we joined the line.

A word of caution – at a certain point, the NRI line merges with the regular ₹300 queue, which means plenty of jostling and crowd pressure. Even the infant queue merges here, and I couldn’t help but feel for parents carrying their little ones through the pushing and pulling of eager devotees.

Despite these challenges, the system does help NRIs and parents with infants to have darshan without the need for any advance reservation.