Bangalore with my 5 year old

In the second week of November 07, Saravanan’s work took him to Bangalore and Gayatri (our 5yr old daughter) and I accompanied him there. He was busy all the days at the exhibition while we savored Bangalore. I think it was a great way to celebrate my birthday! Here’s how we spent it…

Three whole days – Bangalore, Gayatri and me…

The first day was spent in a sight seeing tour of the city in a mini van.. ISKCON temple, Tipu’s Palace, the Bull temple, Vishveshwaraiah’s industrial and technological museum ( science museum from now) and a jungle safari in a van at the Banerghatta national park. Also enjoyable was the ride in the tourist van with Gayatri on my lap cuddled close to my heart. We wanted to visit some of them again, at leisure, the next day.

The second day was charming, fun filled and exciting. Gayatri and me … well I could honestly say, I accompanied Gayatri to the science museum. We had breezed through it during the day tour the previous day. Today, we spent three enchanting hours there… discovering principles of science, building with sponge bricks, assembling Chinese puzzles, playing virtual simulated video games where we were part of the football practice and had to block the balls coming our way! I know that every time I visit Bangalore I am going to visit this museum and head straight for the fun science section on the top floor.

We watched 3D movies, interacted with balls dancing on compressed air and saw our images in funny mirrors. We set balls moving through long and extensive metal pipe mazes, frozen shadows and shadows with lights on LED display boards. We also watched a Spinosaurus growl, flick its tail, move its arms and open its mouth wide… Actually we visited him four times! We had a chocobar and a samosa each for lunch. (These, chips and cold drinks are about all thats available at the museum cafeteria.)

Then we visited the adjoining government museum. I enjoyed going through it and explaining in simple terms the archaeological items on display to my daughter. There were Stone age implements, Harappan flint instruments, iron age arrowheads, clay pottery and burial vessels.

I am grateful to Gayatri for helping me discover how to express myself in a simple, fast and clear manner while explaining to her… to gather info and distill it to the level of her understanding …

There were beautiful Tanjore paintings and miniature paintings in the Mysore, Tanjore and Deccan style. We also saw the marble reliefs and paintings by Venkatiah at the art museum named after him. Two of the reliefs were particularly moving- Shakuntala’s parting from the Ashram with a deer pulling gently at her sari and a resident of the ashram dabbing her eyes with a cloth all rendered in marble! The second was Dronacharya teaching Arjuna and the other princes archery. One can actually sense the concentration of Arjuna and the anticipation and tension at the scene.

Then there were paintings in poster colour…(titled moonrise over Ooty and a few others), depicting hillside scenery bathed in moonlight… enchanting.

We came out of the art gallery, spent a little time watching squirrels at Cubbon park and then walked asking directions every few hundred metres, the 1.5 km distance to Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium. We reached the gate, bought tickets and ran all the way to the building just in time for the sky theatre show ‘celestial fireworks’. Afterwards we spent an educational half hour in the swings and science models kept in the gardens of the planetarium. Walked for a bit munching bhutta and caught a bus back to the hotel ( no autorickshaw was willing to come!).

The third day we visited the Chowdiah memorial hall – the building shaped like a violin, saw Sankey Tank lake and spent six hours in ISKCON temple admiring the deities, viewing two splendid, enchanting multimedia presentations on
Krishna, having for lunch the Rajbhog Prasada, Playing with a balloon and clapping games with Gayatri.

The fourth day… we are both relaxing in our hotel room , watching cartoons on tv, reading, writing, drawing and colouring. The evenings were spent with Saravanan exchanging our day’s experiences and having a wonderful, cheerful, happy family dinner.

I enjoyed my special and exclusive time with Gayatri…