Last Sunday I went with my son to Vandalur zoo (Arignar Anna Zoological park) near Chennai. It is about 25Kms from Chennai city on the NH45 national highway (the same road as Chennai Airport, Tambaram railway station) and driving there is easy once you cross Tambaram. There is ample car parking available inside the zoo premises. The Chennai suburban electric train service is another way to reach there with the station at walking distance from the zoo.

The zoo charges for entry are Adults: Rs.20, Children: Rs.10 and for Photo camera: Rs.25. You can see many varieties of animals, birds, fishes in the zoo. The zoo is situated on a large forest land with lot of space for each animals, so the area you need to cover is quite huge. There seems to be lot of vacant areas with no animals and the overall animal count seems to be low compared to the area of the zoo. You can cover the entire zoo in multiple ways:

1. by walk
2. by renting a cycle (just after the entrance in front of Hotel Tamilnadu)
3. buy a ride in the electric golf-carts (you need to wait for this in a queue)
4. buy a ticket in the zoo tours (in motor van or trams, these are to be booked in advance for the same day)

We went there in the afternoon (in the scorching sun, which was not a good idea) around 1:30PM. By the time we went options 2,3,4 were not available for us - so we took the trip by walk. We saw the animals near the entrance (Monkeys, etc.), then the birds and so on.

There are adequate number of resting area (shades) provided for sitting and relaxing, Toilet facilities are okay. The zoo severely lacks in food courts and cafeterias. Inside the zoo area there are a Aavin ice-cream booth, a small snack shop and in the entrance a restaurant Hotel Tamilnadu owned by Tamilnadu Government. After spending nearly two hours walking, we were tired and hungry - we wanted to get some snacks and my son wanted to eat a 'dosa'. At that time we were half-way inside the zoo, we walked all the way back to the entrance and went to Hotel Tamilnadu hoping for some eatables. To our utter dismay the restaurant was in bad condition (water stagnating on the floor), people having arguments with the billing counter staff (only one for a crowded zoo) and non-availability of any food. They don't seem to be serving Dosa/Idly or any other light snack - only rice items, veg and non-veg biryani's which too had ran out very soon. This re-enforced my general view that Governments (that too in India) have no business running a service industry, Hotel industry is a great example of that and you can add Resorts, Airlines to that list. We decided to cut-short our trip and came out of the zoo. The parking lot attendant helped us by suggesting a "Hotel Sangeetha" which was on the other side of the national highway, just opposite to the zoo. We drove down there, had some good Dosas and Fruit-Juice, came back re-energized.

We came back on time (had to buy the entrance ticket again) for our Lion Safari tour. We managed to book this ticket (advance booking for the 4:30PM tour) for the Lion Safari tour. The whole tour lasts for about 20 minutes and runs every hour twice. You are taken in a special caged van to a special enclosed area inside the zoo where lions are free to roam. The vehicle you are in goes very near to the Lions who are oblivious to our presence inside the van. If you are visiting Vandalur zoo don't miss this tour.

If you wish to see the entire zoo, you will need a full day (nearly from dawn to dusk) to cover it. Keep a good pair of walking shoes, sun cap, drinking water, food & eatables.

I have been delaying my promise to take my son to a "Zoo" in Chennai to see animals for few weeks now. Even though today was a Saturday I had some office work to complete (accounting related to be done before 31st March 2009), I completed them in the first half and returned home early. I took my son and we both went to "Guindy Children's Park", the Children's park and the Snake park (same campus) are both part of "Guindy National Park" situated in Adyar. The Guindy National park along with the adjacent IIT Madras campus and Raj Bhavan as seen in the Map here gives Chennai the much needed lung-space with greenery.

The last time I went to the park was when I was in school and I hardly remember from that visit, so I was not sure on how good the Children's park will be. Whether there will be enough parking for cars, will it be too crowded, opening timings, etc. Anyway I decided to go and check it out. I should say I have been pleasantly surprised - there was enough parking (even on a saturday), though there were lot of school excursions we never felt crowded as the place was big enough to accommodate all. The parks seems to be reasonably maintained, with few places you feel the authorities (Tamilnadu Forest Department) could be doing a better job at cleanliness and animal care. We did notice new name-boards and fences and more being built by workers.

The parks close by 6PM with the last visitors to be allowed at 5:30PM, we went to the Children's park first by 4:15PM  so we had a comfortable visit to both the parks and was out around 5:45PM. The parks are open on all days except Tuesday. The entry fee for Adults in both Children's Park and Snake's Park were Rs.5 each; with the Snake park alone charging for Children that too only Re.1. To see the animals (Hyena, Deers, Peacocks, Birds, Monkeys and others) in the Children Park it took us only about 60 minutes (we went slow and never rushed anywhere) and the next 20-30 minutes in Snake's park. The Children's park has animal enclosures and a large area for kids to play. 

Saravana Stores maintains the only available food-stall/canteen with a limited offering - Popcorn, Juices, Cold-Drinks, Ice-Cream and some snacks. I recommend you wear a comfortable walking shoes so you can walk the full park easily and a cap for the summer days in Chennai. Remember to carry Drinking Water with you. The rest-room facilities are not that clean and are limited in number (we could see some new one's being built) so please plan accordingly.

Overall, if you are in Chennai I recommend a visit here. If you are visiting Chennai, I will suggest you go to Arignar Anna Zoological Park (a.k.a. Vandalur Zoo) which is 30Kms from Chennai and to Chennai Crocodile park in ECR Road (my earlier post here on Crocodile Park).

Last year during one of my business trips to USA, I purchased this (then) latest DVD "Bob the Builder Onsite - Roads and Bridges" for my son. This is not the regular Bob the Builder Cartoon show that is shown in Cartoon Network/Pogo, it is an education video. Bob explains and explores real life on constructions sites - on how roads & bridges are build; how many people and machines work tirelessly in these projects and more. At the time I bought this DVD my son didn't like, after few minutes he switched it off. Today when he saw this DVD again, he asked for it to be played - and he enjoyed it thoroughly. He ended up learning how these are done and recalling the processes to me. Nice DVD for your young kids - comes highly recommended by me if your kid is over 5 years for them to understand and enjoy this.

I have been looking for a good colouring and painting programme that my 5 year old son can use easily. Windows Paint is Okay for beginning, but beyond a point it is very limiting for their creativity. I have tried many of the commercial one's that you get in CD and DVDs in Bookstores but most of them are little more than being useless. Today I came across a free and Open-Source drawing program for children ages 3 to 12 called TuxPaint. It combines an easy-to-use interface, fun sound effects, and an encouraging cartoon mascot who guides children as they use the program. Last one hour my son is playing with it and seems to like it a lot.

I have a five year old son and it goes without saying that I love him a lot. Last week in his school he had a general health checkup done and his teacher sent us a note saying he has cavities in his tooth(s).  We were surprised, and as any other parent we dismissed this as a poor job by the school. My son is allergic to food in general and every meal is a 1 hour ordeal with him. He doesn't like Ice-Creams or sweets, and it is rare for him to eat even chocolates or cream biscuits. So we thought there was little chance for him to get cavities.

Anyway we took him for a visit to our near-by dentist, who diagnosed that he has 8 cavities (one per tooth) and out of which two were more deeper than the rest. Since these are Milk Tooths we assumed we can leave this as it is and they will fall themselves. The dentist educated us on both our misunderstandings:

1. Kids don't need to eat Chocolates or Ice-Creams a lot for getting cavities - just eating rice, breads or biscuits and not cleaning / brushing properly can do equal damage as chocolates. And not chewing properly can also contribute to damage - my son is certainly guilty of this, which we too kept supporting by making rice mashed and easier for him to swallow.
2. Milk Tooths especially Molar teeth(s) will fall the last and can be there till 11 or 12 years. In my son's case, the deeper cavities are in Molar teeths and any time now he may start getting to feel pain and filling after that will be more painful for him. The dentist will have to administer an injection in the gums and do the root canal. I was feeling worried for next few days on how my son will cope with this injection.

The first three visits went easy with the dentist doing the easier fillings, two tooths per visit and my son cooperated very well with the doctor. The junior doctor made it interesting for my son, by showing the drilled dusts as "Germs" and telling that she was shooting the germs with water & then filling the gaps with white colour "Cement". The last sitting when the dentist injected him and did the root canal, my son cried a bit which we managed. After the treatment he is feeling fine now. After two weeks we have to go again for the permanent filling for the last two tooths.

Myself and my wife now realize it is our responsibility to teach our son to eat properly and brush his teeth regularly!

Yesterday while I went to Ranganathan Street area in T.Nagar (Chennai) for visiting our LIFCO Showroom there, I saw few CD stores. I went to one of them "Srinivasa Music Collection" in Ramanathan Street (near Rameswaram Road end). I presumed it is one of those shops selling English movies dubbed in Tamil and loads of MP3 CDs (Both of which they did have), but I was surprised to find a decent collection of Carnatic, Devotional and Kids CD & DVDs made in Chennai. I bought few K.Veermani Audio CDs, two Kids DVD and a DVD from Geethanjali on Temples of India (Tamilnadu).

One of the Kids DVD I bought was "Good Habits" which is an animated video explaining to young kids on how to keep their body parts healthy (Eye, Nose, Ears individually), Table Manners, Toilet Cleanliness, behaving with friends, neighbours and the like. It was made by a local company Magicbox who are based in Usman Road, T.Nagar, Chennai. At Rs.125/- I was not sure whether to buy or not - I was doubtful on the quality of the production. Now in the morning today I played it for my son and it turned out to be well made and worth the money.

My son was selected in his school (Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan) to participate in a fancy dress competition conducted in Chettinad School last week. The task of coming up with the theme and the dress was left to us parents.

The first was the theme (concept), after much wrangling between me and my wife, she came with the brilliant idea of doing Kannappa Nayanar story with the message on "Eye Donation". She said since I am an avid blogger I write well so she assigned me to writing the script (this is the downside of writing blogs I learned on that day ). Add to this she assigned me to write it in both languages - Tamil and English as we couldn't agree on which language our son will feel comfortable delivering. Here is the complete script in Tamil and English on Kannapa Nayanar story in brief with a message in the end on Eye Donation (Please feel free to use it if you have a need). 

The second was to source the costume. We needed a hunter dress complete with Deer skin (or like) bottom, Bow and Arrow, Cap, Beads Garland, etc. After some search in Internet I came across an article in "The Hindu" listing some costume hires. With that information and inputs from friends and relatives, we identified 3 shops in South Chennai. We went to all the three, all of them had the dress set we wanted for hire. On an average per day of hire they quoted Rs.100-150 and a refundable deposit of Rs.200-400. We went with the first shop listed below just because the dress looked slightly better than the others. 

1. K. Nathamuni & Sons (Theatre & Cine Hires & Suppliers), New #179 (Old #73) Kodambakkam High Road, Chennai - 17. Phone: 044-2345 5990, 4212 2229. If you are coming from Valluvar Kottam towards Vadapalani, instead of climbing the Kodambakkam Flyover, get into the small lane below (left hand side of the flyover, opposite to Murasoli office) after few shops you will find this one.
2. Nathrang & Co. (Hires of Cine & Dramatic Costumes of Historical & Social pattern & cartoon characters), Nathigam Press Building, First Floor, 97/55 Arcot Road, Chennai - 600 024. Phone: 044-2480 2489. 
3. Thangam Dresses (Costumes & Ornaments for Hire & Sale, Character Wigs, Turbens & Dresses, School Drama, etc.) 199 Arcot Road, Vadapalani, Chennai - 600 026. Phone: 044-2362 3467, 98415 53888, 98418 46888. This shop is exactly opposite to Vadapalani Police Station on Arcot Road itself, few shops from the Ring Road intersection.

I have never been good in free-hand drawing or colouring. Other than Plays and oratory competitions, Arts and Crafts were always distant skills for me right from my school days. In fact I hated Biology classes in School and Engineering Drawing in Graduation just because they required me to the draw. I could getaway without drawing from my teachers, but I couldn't from my son. Two weeks back on a weekend he wanted me to draw Tractor Tom - how much ever I tried to convince him that I can't draw he didn't agree.  So here is what I managed and below that the original image of Tractor Tom (as seen in DVD):

Yesterday I took my son and his cousins to this movie - "Ghatothkach". As Sathyam Cinemas website was down I used their door delivery facility for getting the tickets which was very convenient and you had to pay only Rs.75 extra for the service.

In Mahabharat epic Ghatothkach is the son of Bheema (Pandavas). Ghatothkach inherits immense strength from his father and wonderful magic powers which he uses for good. With this one line story from the epic and inspired by the 1957 live action film Mayabazar, Ghatothkach movie gives a clean entertainment for kids. The movie is directed by legendary director Mr.Singeetam Srinivasa Rao.

My kid loved the scenes where Ghatothkach and his pet elephant utters the magic words "Ambilica Bambulica".  Having seen the Tamil Mayabaazar movie and the song "Kalyana Samayel Saatham" (Same video clip in Telugu here) I expected the scene in the movie to be more grand and entertaining, but it was very brief here. The movie ends kind of suddenly before you expect the end. There is nothing for grown-ups in the movie other than the superb animation and music. My wife slept through the 90 minutes film. Good time pass for kids in the summer.

I have been enjoying "Archie" comics for over two decades now. I was introduced to them during my high school days by my cousin "Anand" who is now working in USA. Those days (and even now in Indian Rupees) they used to be very expensive and not available in Chennai. So the option was to rent them from book lending libraries and my favourite was Raviraj Lending Library in Usman Road (Opposite to first GRT Thanga Maligai). Those days the membership was like Rs.25 or Rs.50 and even if you take half-a-dozen books for reading you paid only few rupees (which itself was got after a big fight with my mother). Nowadays whenever I take my nephews to "Eloor" lending library in North Boag Road I still take few of them and I still enjoy reading Archie comics once in a while.

And whenever I travel to USA and shopping in Safeway I end up buying the latest issue. At $3 per issue they are expensive but then cheaper than a Starbucks coffee, right?. Last week when I was there I bought Feb '08 issue of Pals 'n' Gals double digest. What pleasantly surprised me was seeing the main theme to be "Raj" an Indian Student whose parents where Dr. Ravi Patel and his wife Mrs.Mona Patel. The character "Raj" is shown as a tech whiz taking a school film for fun.

I have travelled in Chennai ECR road several times, but not even once I have stopped to go inside the Crocodile Park which is there. Today being a Sunday I was thinking of a place to take my son out and came up with this place. Though I have seen Crocodile parks in many zoos around the world, my only recollection of seeing them in Chennai are in my school days at Guindy National Park. So it was exciting for me as well to see them in Chennai

Madras Crocodile Bank (as it is called) is located 40 km from Chennai city (or 10 Km from Mamallapuram) along east coast road with the Bay of Bengal as a backdrop. We started off from my home around 3:30PM, reached 15 minutes to 5:00PM. The park is open till 6PM, so we spend nearly an hour going around the park. I was expecting a small collection of Crocs, but was surprised to find they have hundreds of them and of many species. The place is also quite spread out and neatly maintained. The Entry fee for Indians - Adults (Rs.30), Children (Rs.20), Still Camera (Rs.20). The place is worth going with your kids.

Dakshina Chitra

Last year or so, again one of the Sundays I went with my family to Dakshina Chitra. This is also in ECR Road about 21Km from Chennai. This is a cultural village that have replicas of South Indian Houses, heritage items, etc. replicating the cultural settings. All 4 southern states have presence here. I found it to be interesting for the first visit. If you want to learn about South India this is a must see place.

For last two days my son has been down with fever. As any parent will know it is very difficult to get them retain (without vomiting) what they ate when they are unwell and to make them have their medicines.

My son is now 5 years old and can understand things if told to him in simplified fashion. So today I told him that if he takes his food and medicine, they will combine together as friends and fight with the germs (bad guys) inside his stomach. Since they  are now two against one, the germs will be defeated and his fever will be cured. Luckily he bought into the idea, took his food & medicine. He kept repeating the story to the entire family and that probably gave him psychological comfort as well. Oh what an idea!

Update 1/April/2008: He has recovered and fine today.

How times have changed?

When I was in school, we had this orange cool drink called "Gold Spot" that was hugely popular. They had a campaign at that time - to collect the stickers inside the crown of each bottle, stick it in an album and exchange them for gifts. The gift I was eagerly collecting the stickers for months was a full colour book of Walt Disney's Jungle Book. Remember at those days we had no CD/DVD and books were fancied items that had mystical powers to tell you a story, transport you to a new world. And the world I wanted to be in (just like every other kid around me) was to the wonderful jungle world of Mowgli.

Unlike today's kids I was not given any pocket money, for that matter I was hardly allowed to handle currencies till I was grown up. So there is no way I could drink those many Gold Spots to collect the stickers needed that would have got me the book. So whenever I got a chance (which is not so often) I drank a Gold Spot - I did this months but I could hardly collect more than few. That's when I sought out the help of a local Pan shop vendor who gave me permission to collect thrown-away crowns in his road-side shop. Living in Ranganathan Street, T.Nagar had advantages like you being known to every shop keeper in the bazaar. Then one day my mother came to know that I was scavenging (can this be called scavenging, I was on a mission) and I was warned severely not to go to the shop and my cousin warned the shop keeper not to let me near the shop anymore. With this supply cut-off, I was deeply disappointed. Then thanks to my maternal uncle Nandakumar who knew someone in Goldspot office, who got me the book directly. Though it removed the fun associated with collected the crowns and exchanging it with friends, I was delighted that I got the book.

OK, why I am going in this nostalgic journey now?. Recently when I was in Canada I purchased the Platinum Edition of Jungle Book (DVD) for $23 for my son and that's when I remembered these childhood memories. Just now I told the story and played the DVD to my son who is enjoying the fun. Coming to think of it, what a timeless piece of work Walt Disney has created. His work captivated me 25 years back, today it is being enjoyed by my son and I am sure it will be magical for future generations as well. Interestingly I noticed it in shops today that the DVD is available for Rs.600 ($15) in Chennai itself, I needn't have bought it abroad.

I am not the only one who is nostalgic about Jungle book and Goldspot, when I googled I saw many other posts who feel the same (one more). Finally my son today didn't scavenge, he didn't even ask for it, yet he got the DVD on his bedroom. That's why I started by saying - Times have changed.

Regular readers who waste time reading this blog know that I have a 4 year son and I buy lot of DVDs (CDs) for him. We try and restrict his TV viewing to an hour or two per day, not easy many times and requires all tricks of parenting.

Few months back I bought from Amazon (USA) a series of DVDs titled "Max and Ruby". This series has appropriate content for kindergartners, the main characters are two rabbits (Max the boy and Ruby his elder sister). Max is a usual next door mischievous boy and Ruby tries to teach Max lot of basic etiquettes and behavior on daily settings. My son loves the series and it reduces his time watching Chutty TV (Sun TV's Kids channel, which most of the time has content not for his age).

OK, let me come back to why I started this post. These original DVDs that I bought should be ideally commercials free, at least  not disturb me before the main story. The DVDs start with half-a-dozen commercials promoting other products from the same company (Nick Jr), which I will have to keep skipping it till the main story starts. With some other similar Kids DVDs they start with promotions for movies which are not appropriate for kindergartners. When the content producers and Hollywood keep complaining about piracy, they should understand to respect the wishes of a paid user. 

Do you feel the same way? 

I always liked the lifestyle and health articles shown in top area in MSN.COM. This week MSN published few interesting articles relating to raising kids, all had some unconventional wisdom that I thought it was worth to link from here.

• Turning to nannies and day care, many working moms have mixed feelings about leaving the kids at home. How to handle this? 
• The other article was on The Making of a Modern Dad. The article says there is more than what meets the eye of fatherhood. In fact there seems to be considerable hormone changes happening in a father just like it happens to a mother after pregnancy. Fathers tend to become more caring and loving than before having a child.  Being a father of a 4 year old boy, I tend to agree with this article, though I don't understand the biological effects. The best part in the article was the phrase "Honey, we're pregnant"
• This is a question that all parents have - how good or bad is Television?. This article says that Television viewing is not encouraged for kids below 2 years, but can be good if moderated for kids between 3 to 5.

Everytime when I travel especially abroad, I make it a point to buy some toys for my son who is now going to four in few months. But after few purchases of cars, dolls, CDs, the purchase becomes same and boring. So I try to search for some new or different items to buy.This time during my London visit, I saw one such interesting but simple item. It was from ELC called Let's Go Shopping.

The objective of the game is to simply shop. Click on the back image of the box for more instructions.

Last Sunday, I had some quality leisure time to spend with my son. I started by opening a Tom and Jerry Puzzle that he has - boy I didn't remember that puzzles were fun and also tough. Being a 3 year restless kid, after 180 seconds he became bored by it and started playing on his own, but I spent the next 20 minutes and completed the puzzle. In this materialistic world, we miss out on these simple activities like a Puzzle. To prove that I did complete it, here is the photo:

The next I did with my son was to watch a DVD with him. Some how the cartoons I consider otherwise kiddish, becomes fun while watching with him. In his School (Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan) for Pre-KG that he is studying they are teaching him Vegetables. So he is excited whenever he sees a Vegetable (with the 't' pronounced bold by him). So while shopping in LandMark my wife picked up this DVD on Vegetables, though I buy many CD/DVD everytime I travel, my wife gets lucky in picking the good ones.  Past experience for me with buying Indian made Kid CD/DVDs were not good - the CDs were not made as interesting to kids as the western made one's like Oswald/Barney/TeleTubbies. The exception to this, was the hugely successful "Hanuman" DVD. To my surprise, this DVD on Vegetables was made very well - the DVD has made a boring topic like teaching Vegetables fun, as it was told in a story format with good animation and characters. I recommend this for any kid below 5 years. I wishes to the maker of this DVD - Gipsy.

(Click to view the cover and story brief)