Sanskruti, Pune - The Ethnic Getaway for Kids!
By Madhurie Singh, August 30, 2009
A few months back my school mate arrived home with her daughter from Bangalore.
It’s fun to see one’s school mate after a few years married, with changed views about the world, with profession that was never ever imagined and so on.
But obviously, the best is always to meet their kids. 🙂
My friend came to Pune with her daughter who is older to my sons. So she instantly became their didi.
My sons were enjoying making tea and pakoras with their new didi :), which we had to sip, eat and also made sure that we praised their imaginary food. That’s time I realised, how I might be irritating my hubby by asking him, how was the food even before he swallowed the first bite :P.
With any extra kid in the house, even a normal day becomes very tiring, somehow. So we decided to go out in the evening to some place where the kids can play around freely, eat happily and also just be relaxed.
Whenever we go out, my first intention is to have a gala time. No hassling for food or toilet!
Since we had a good number of hours to spend, I decided upon Sanskruti. It’s my first choice whenever anyone comes to Pune from abroad.
Sanskruti is little away from Hadapsar with very spacious location, ethnically decorated and designed. The theme is Rajesthani folk look and feel. It’s a peaceful place to hang around with kids and friends.
Lovely parking space too so never go by an auto rickshaw as finding one back home will be a nightmare!
The moment you enter, there is a row of snacks and drinks with maharashtrian and rajesthani touch. Golguppas, vada pav, dhokla, bhelpuri, chaat, samosa, chole and rasna !
After we had nearly all the yummy snacks without feeling any guilt, we headed towards the magic show hut. There was a stand up comedy going on in the near by hut. There was a ghazal singer entertaining people with their selections. There was a shed for palmists too where my friend wanted to go, but looking at the crowd, she decided against it.
We went to a puppet show after some time, where the kids were having time of their life. The puppeteer was quite interactively entertaining.
I was keen on trying my hands again on the pottery wheel. More than me, my sons were eager to put their creativity on the wheel! My friend’s daughter Manasvi was too good with the pottery. She made lovely tiny pots of different shapes and painted them back home. (Now they are gone as my sons crushed the pots to remake a dinosaur from the mud, which never even saw the light of the day, leave alone any color! )
Since we were again famished, exploring so many new stuff, we went to the dining hall. Yes! There are two dining halls with buffet of rajesthani food laid out. Well, the food is not as delicious as the activities we did there. But we freaked out on the unlimited icecreams with gulab jamuns. 😛
After eating our dinner, we still were not in the mood to leave the beautiful Sanskruti arena. So we sat down to watch dance performances alternating between katthak and western with bollywood style.
As we were through with the dance, we discovered another enclosed place where people were trying their vocal cords with an orchestra! In front of that were a few girls from Eastern Indian states, performing bamboo dance. My friend jumped right away in between the bamboos and danced away like a pro.
Kids wanted to try it too, but I was little scared of the effect of bamboo clacking against their tiny ankles, so diverted them towards the karaoke. My hubby, who sang a few songs that were more like playing antakshari. So on the way back home, we continued playing antakshari till the three kids fell asleep. Hoping that we were not so boring for them, we continued to our journey singing away.
I really feel like going there again, but will control the urge until the H1N1 virus meets it’s natural end.
SANSKRUTI Address :
Opp. Indian Oil Corporation, Solapur Highway, Loni-Kalbhor, Pune-412201. Tel.:6915156 / 7 / 8. Fax : 6359165
Admin. Office : 16, Gulistan Complex, K.B. Hidayatulla Road, Opp. S.P.C.A. ,
Near Poona College, Pune : 411001.
PHONES : 4030434/5 Tele-Fax -4030436
SITE PHONE : 6915156 / 7 / 8.
SANSKRUTI Timing and Tariff – DETAILS
Timings for SANSKRUTI are 10:30 a.m. to 03:30p.m. and 05:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. for Saturdays & Sundays, and daily it is open from 05:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. The TARIFF is Rs. 225 /-* per adult and Rs. 125 /-* per child (Between 3 ft. & 41/2 Ft. of height).
I like your blog and the information is very helpful. This is in response to the above mail about Sanskriti School Pune. The transport situation is getting worse at other places too, and the school is not paying attention, in fact school has opted other ways to tackle the situation like threatening parents on many occasions to not open their mouths. thanks!
Thanks but this review is about Sanskruti park not school.
Just wanted to highlighted the pathetic transport facilty by Sanskriti School. Below is the letter which I had written to the Principal on 8th Dec 10. The Admin Department tried to solve the issue but still no solution. With this mail, I would also like to mention that the Principal is a gem of a person and all the teachers are very very cooporative and helpful. They really take very good care of the kids. The only issue I have is the transport facility. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8th Dec 10 To, The Principal, Sanskriti School, Pune. Subject : Request to improve transport facility from Karvenagar Area. Respected Madam, I, XYZ am mother of ABC who has recently joined the school in Nursery Class. We stay at Karvenagar and ABC travels in Bus No.9. While taking admission we had talked to the Bus Driver about the travel time from Karvenagar to the School and he had confirmed that it would be 1 hr at the most. Since 1st day of her school (which was 18th Oct 2010) the driver picks her up at 8.55 am and drops her at 3.45 pm. The school timings are from 10.30 am to 2.30 pm. If we work it out, ABC is spending almost 3 hrs just traveling to the school and back home. For a 5 year old kid, spending 2.5-3 hrs just traveling is quite frustrating and also unfruitful. ABC very much likes the school and also her school teachers. But last few days she has been constantly complaining about the travel time and so doesn't want to go to the school. My main concern here is she should not dislike such a unique and modern school only because of the long transit hours. Presently Bus No. 9 (in which she travels) is for Kothrud, Karvenagar, Bhandarkar Road etc areas. This is a very long route. May I request the school to please improve the transport facility which would be beneficial to all the students and also the school. I have been told that many students come from Karvenagar and Warje Area. One of the possibilities which I can think of, is to arrange one school bus only for students from Karvenagar and Warje Area. This would avoid the unnecessary travel time and would be beneficial for all the new students who want to join Sanskriti School but are opting out due to the travel time. The second option is to move her in a different bus, where the transit time is less than 1 hrs. Your interference in this matter would be really highly appreciated. Thanks in advance, Best regards, Mrs. XYZ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Below is the second mail which I have written to the principal. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6th Jan 2011 To, The Principal, Sanskriti School, Pune. Subject : Transport facility from Karvenagar Area. Respected Madam, This letter is in continuation to the letter I sent on 8th Dec 2010 regarding the transportation facility from Karvenagar area. I would like to inform you that on 23rd Dec 2010, I had a talk with Mr. Jaysing (who administers the transport facility). He assured us that he would surely resolve the issue. But the issue is still not sorted out. ABC was travelling by bus # 9 that had issues with the time and space. In an attempt to identify and resolve the matter, she was allowed to travel in bus # 8 (other route). Though the time required was not that different, this bus (#8) was a bigger bus and had sufficient space for all the kids travelling. Further to my earlier mail, I would like to highlight (which I didn’t mention in my previous mail) one more issue with Bus No 9. This No. 9 bus is a small 14-15 seater van. In this van 25 kids travel every day. Today (6th Jan 11) I had a talk with the bus driver, and he told me that they make 4 kids seat on each (two-seater) seat. They arrange all these 25 kids (by making them seat back facing, side facing). The driver also gave me other reasons like, not all 25 students are present on a single day and the kids don’t seat at one place they keep moving or stand in the bus so this small van is okay. Today after talking with the driver I was shocked to hear that the driver is risking life of all these 25 kids just to accommodate 25 kids in 15 seater van. The school allows only 30 kids to be in one class for better attention, then why can’t we have similar kind of rule for transportation based on the area. If there are sufficient numbers of kids coming from one area then a separate bus can be arranged for them. This will reduce the travelling time for all the kids travelling and will also have sufficient space for them. What I understand is the school transport facility needs lots of improvement. My daughters travel time still is 2.5-3 hrs and also has issues with Bus No. 9. The admin department is not able to resolve these issues. As a concerned parent I request you to personally look into this issue. Thanks, XYZ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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