Arangetram at Tilak Smarak Mandir

I visited Arangetram of nine students conducted at Tilak Smarak Mandir on this Thursday. The students were conducting it as part of completion of their Bharatnatyam training from Kalaniketan Bharatnatyam School, the institute where my daughter goes for her classes.

Arangetram started at 5 PM but we reached there only at 6 PM since we had our office working. The dances were nothing short of amazing. We were mesmerized by the dance, the singing and the music. There was an interval at 6:45 PM when certificate distribution was conducted and students were awarded their degrees. This lasted for around half an hour and after 7:30 PM, the second phase of Arangetram started and multiple dances were done with stories of Krishna Radha, Shiva Tandav and Natraj. Since I had to attend some meeting, we had to leave at 8 PM and we couldn't attend the full ceremony.

All in all, it was one of its kind experience.

World of Veg

We visited World of Veg restaurant as part of celebrating my wedding anniversary last week. The restaurant is located at Ramsukh House, next to HDFC House/Nexa Showroom at Shivajinagar.

Food: The menu of the restaurant is available here. The restaurant offers Thali as well as a la carte. Since we were only three of us, we went for Thali. It had following:

• Jaljeera
• Chhash (Buttermilk)
• Dhokla as steamed Farsaan
• Vada as fried Farsaan
• Chaat
• Srikhand as cold Sweet
• Doodh pak as hot Sweet
• Strawberry burfi as dry Sweet
• Veg Makhani
• Paneer Kadhai
• Tomato-Potato sabji
• Gavar sabji
• Fulka
• Puri
• Chutneys

The ambience was really very good with terrace having lots of plants and flowers but we took indoor lunch since it was sunny and hot outside. The pictures do show that the thali and katoris were silver.

The per thali charge was 600 and 20% were taxes so it cost INR 720 per thali and there was no discount for kids which I considered to be a bit on the higher side. I would have preferred Panchvati Gaurav compared to this one except for the ambience. I would like to visit the restaurant again at night to see the view of whole Pune at night.

Lonavla Wax Museum

I visited Lonavla Wax Museum last month while visiting other places. I was a bit disappointed with my visit since the museum is a replica of Sunil's Celebrity Wax Museum and the entry charges are same but the experience is not the same.

Route: The location of the museum is here. This is very near to the original Sunil's Celebrity Wax Museum and that's why we got confused and visited this one.

Activities: In the original Sunil's Celebrity Wax Museum there are more than hundred wax statues but in this one there are only 11-12 statues which takes less than half an hour to cover. We found Bruce Willis, Mr Bean, Michael Jackson, Harry Potter, Lata Mangeshkar, Mother Teresa, Narendra Modi, Barack Obama, Arnold and other statues.

Fees: The entry fee is INR 150 per person which I found to be on the higher side considering just half an hour of enjoyment. There were other activities too for which there were separate charges.

I would not consider visiting it as value for money.

Hadshi Temple and Pavna Dam

I visited Hadshi Temple and Pavna Dam last week as there was heavy rain the previous week so chances of having to see greenery around Pune was worth having.

Route:We started for Hadshi temple on route shown here at around 8:30 AM. There were waterfalls and rivulets along the way which the kids enjoyed. My wife had prepared some pop-corns which came handy for breakfast along the way.


We reached the temple at around 10:15 AM as the roads were not that good so driving at a speed was difficult. The temple has Vitthal avatar of Krishna and Rukmani. There was a temple of Saibaba too. There were ponds where we saw lotus and butterflies on the lotus too.

We spent some time at the temple having our breakfast with thepla and patra that the two ladies had planned for us.


We moved from there to Pavna Dam at around 11:45 AM. We spent some time at the Dam just seeing the beauty of nature.

We finally went to Tony Da Dhaba near Lonavala to have lunch and then came home.

All in all, it was a nice picnic for the kids and us.

Westend Mall, Aundh

We visited two eateries in Westend Mall at Aundh in the last one month. The mall itself opened somewhere in the middle of June and so we tried our hands on eating there.

The first one was Kailash Parbat. The menu of the restaurant is available here. We ordered following items:

• Veg Combo
• Gulab Jamun
• Chat Platter

The total bill was around INR 450 which was not on very high side.

The second time we went there, we tried Wadeshwar whose menu is available here. Some items are specific to this shop such as combos. We chose to order following:

• Combo one which had Masala Dosa, Filter Coffee
• Combo two which had Biryani, Filter Coffee
• Aappe
• Ghee Idli

The total bill was around INR 550.

Both the places were reasonable for eating out.

Devka Beach and Daman

I visited Devka Beach last week when I went to Surat. It was a one-day trip from morning 8:30 AM till 10:30 PM at night but we really enjoyed every bit of it.

Route: We started our journey from my in-laws' place taking the route shown in map. We started at around 8:30 AM from our place. We had a small halt at Jalaram Khaman House in Chikhali where we had some Khaman for breakfast. This really reminded me of my school days when we were having such delicious khaman from our canteen. The true taste was because of "Tadka" that they put on the khaman which is nothing but a lot of oil adding to my already overweight body.


There were some traffic delays which increased our time to reach and we reached at Devka beach, Miramar hotel at around 11:45 AM. We used the washrooms of the hotel and meanwhile kids started demanding some play. You can clearly see the photos above of all the three kids enjoying.

My friend had decided to take lunch at Cidade De Daman but there was some marriage ceremony in the resort and was completely booked for lunch and no outsiders were allowed. So we decided to just take some rest by enjoying the sea-view there and decided to move to Jazeera for taking lunch.


We ordered following items in lunch:

• Veg starter - Veg Kabab
• Non-veg starter - Chiken Chili
• Veg soup - Cream of Vegetables
• Non-veg soup - Chicken Manchow
• Two vegetables - One with vegetables and one with Paneer
• One non-veg vegetable
• Naans and Rotis

We finally stayed at Jazeera hotel till 5 PM. The kids enjoyed splashing water in ocean waves.

Finally the ladies decided to do some shopping which actually turned out to be a lot of shopping. We started from Devaka at around 7 PM after having some Breezer and also some Faluda.

While returning home, we had small dinner at Sugar and Spice.

All in all it was really a very nice day spent. The total cost of the trip including commute cost (but excluding shopping of course) came to around INR 500 per person which didn't look high to me.

P.S. Anybody seeing photos of my handsome friend and his beautiful wife and willing to give them modelling contract can directly contact me with comments on this post.

Chaat Bazaar Aundh

We visited Chaat Bazaar, a newly opened restaurant last week at Aundh. Earlier there was a book rental shop JustBooks Plc which moved to first floor while the ground floor got leased by the new restaurant. Our favourite Kadhai in Anand Park got closed two months back so we wanted to try our hands on something new.

Food: We went to restaurant multiple times and tried several different items as given in the list below:

• Pizza Dosa - This was a very new item for us and surprisingly, it turned out to be good. My daughter likes pizza and she liked this one too wrapped with dosa around it. There were two chutneys with the item which was quite tasty.
• Masala Dosa - This was an item made of beet root and the sambhar was better then even at Vaishali.
• Chinese Bhel - This was not something according to our expectation and I didn't think it was value for money.
• Pani puri - This was quite good.
• Hakka Noodles - This along with gravy manuchrian was what my daughter was looking for.
• Gravy Manuchrian - This was good but not as great as that of Rahul restaurant.

We will keep visiting again to check for more items. It is worth trying out.

ISKCON Temple Nigdi

I visited ISKCON Temple near Nigdi yesterday. It was a nice place to spend an evening with your family.

Timings and Route: I left from my home in Aundh at 6 PM and took the route shown here and reached there by around 6:40 PM. There are different times for aarti and the next one was at 7 PM. The last one had already completed at 6:25 PM so we were neither late nor early.

We took some pradakshina around the temple and then waited for the curtains to open to have a view of Krishna and Radha. I told my wife how beautiful the multi-color chaniya/lehanga of Radha looked. I even searched for photos of temple and didn't find such dress worn by her in earlier photos Google search.

Fees: There were no fees for the temple.

Food: There was some prasad being given outside the temple and we took some to taste it. It was delicious at best.

All in all, we did enjoy the trip.

P.S. : No selfies were allowed in the temple but I had taken some photos of the temple itself and looks like Krishna didn't like it since I forgot my slr camera lens cover in temple itself. Big punishment for taking photos!My daughter found the lens cap from my car. So no punishment from Krishna in taking snaps.

Lashkari Bhajiya Dumas

Typically I write about places in Pune but this time I visited a nice eatery near my native place Surat and I wanted to share my experience. We went to Dumas to eat Bhajiya this Sunday when I visited my native place Surat.

Food: You get to eat different kinds of Bhajiya here that includes:

• Tomota Bhajiya
• Onion Bhajiya
• Methi Bhajiya (Gota)
• Ratalu (Kand) Bhajiya

Charges were 80 per plate (which included around 250 gm of bhajiya) but were varying based on the type. For a group of seven of us, we hardly spent around 500 for our breakfast. I also took parcel for my parents as they didn't accompany us. All in all it really was one of its kind experience. I would recommend you to go there if you visit Surat.

Greens and Olives Aundh

We visited Greens and Olives restaurant on last Thursday as part of celebrating my wife's birthday.

Food: The menu of the restaurant is available here. The restaurant offers buffet lunch and a la carte. There were many items on menu but we ordered following:

• My wife and I ordered Brocolli Cheese Soup - we really liked it.
• We ordered Classic Italian Minestrone Soup - this was plain soup so we didn't like much.
• Lebanese Platter - this included Falafel with Pita Bread and Hummus. I had recently eaten a similar item in Surat and I knew how to eat it otherwise it was difficult to understand how to eat it.
• Mexican Rice - This was the best item we had.
• Brownie with ice cream

The total bill came to 1635 which was a bit on the higher side for three people but due to my wife's birthday, I didn't care much.