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.