In the first of our series on finding fun activities to share with your little one without succumbing to the mall/multiplex culture in every Indian city, we asked Lalita Iyer,

blogger and mum to Re, 26 months, to share her ideas. She had already started this list on her blog ( http://mommygolightly.wordpress.com), but added in more options specially for M&B...

In an over-consumerist and pre-packaged world, malls and playpens are increasingly figuring as the top outings for children, and seldom do you hear of parents stepping out of air-conditioned comfort to give their kids a flavour of their own city, or even expose them to the things they did as children. Yes, there are a few who go out of their way to ensure their tots have more tactile, fuller, experiences but a great majority are happy with manufactured comfort and stimulation. So, instead of echoing the common whine of ‘There’s nothing to do in Mumbai really’, we came up with a list of 50 things that you can do with your child. Mind you, most of these will take work, but all of these cost next to nothing, and will leave behind memories of a far richer texture than eating candy in the mall. So, here goes, in no particular order:

1 Take a nature walk in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park. Sanctuary Asia organises regular tours which include bees, birds, animals, insects, trees, and plant-spotting and ends with a picnic by the Tulsi river. You carry your own food hamper though.

2 Explore the Mahim Nature Park. Yes, tucked away behind the Dharavi slum is also one of the city’s greenest lungs. Walk about, hug the trees, watch the Mithi river (that notorious one you only read about during the 26/11 floods) flow by, compare and contrast the serenity with the world outside, read a book, play hide-and seek with your kids.

3 Visit the Dolphin Irla Aquarium in Vile Parle. There is a boating pond, a toy train and an aquarium in the middle of the pond.  Also, a few ducks, rabbits, squirrels and parrots to complete the spectacle.

4 Visit the Taraporewala Aquarium at Chowpatty. It’s still the only big one we have, and it’s a place you went to for school outings, remember?

5 Ride a double-decker bus. There are still a few left in the city and most of them are in South Mumbai. Find out if your nearest bus depot has any, jump onto it in the off-peak hours (afternoons or early mornings) with your tot, make your way upstairs and grab the seats right in front and experience the wind kissing your face. It’s a thriller of a ride.

6 Go to Dhobhighat. Yes, it is clichéd, but it’s an adrenaline rush. Watch your child’s eyes get rounder and rounder as acres and acres of fabric get pummelled, rinsed, shaken and dried in this open-air laundry in Mahalaxmi.

7 Take one of MTDC’s organised open-air bus tours (book on 22845678) on the Nilambari that starts from the Gateway of India. You can even book the entire bus and host a mobile birthday party for your papoose. Of course, they don’t run in the monsoons (June-September).

8 Convince the nearest bakery to allow you a peek into their kitchen and watch loaves of fresh bread, buns and biscuits pop out of their amazonian ovens and carried out, laden in trays. For instance, at Crown Bakery in Mahim, the kitchen is pretty much visible to all. You can buy fresh pav, straight off the oven, and poke into it, the steam still oozing out. The visual of trays and trays of nankhatais and coconut cookies and khari biscuits is unforgettable!

9 Hire a hand-cart (yes, you can!) and if you are spirited enough, take your child for a merry ride on it in your neighbourhood, stopping by at your regular spots. If you can, throw in some of his friends too. But remember, you have to push the cart, so do a weight check.

10 Hit the beach. It is the one thing Mumbai has that no other city has, so make the most of it. Depending on where you stay, you can do Chowpatty, Shivaji Park, Juhu, Versova, Aksa, Madh, Marve, Uttan, Gorai, and many more. And don’t complain that the beaches are dirty. They could be better, but what better way to teach your child how not to litter? While you are there, do get your hands dirty (you can always sanitise them later) by building a sand castle, drink naariyal pani (maybe from the same coconut) or have a kulfi (come on, do it). You can also summon a chana-jor garam wala and get the child to watch how he makes his little paper cones, and maybe get him to fill one up too.


11 Parks. Mumbai has some great ones too. There’s BPT, Colaba Woods, Horniman Circle Garden, Hanging Garden (which even has the giant-sized Old Woman’s Shoe!) in South Mumbai, Diamond Garden in Chembur, Five Gardens in Dadar (which you can round off with idlis in Matunga), Johnson and Johnson gardens and Kalidas Park in Mulund, Nirvana Garden in Powai, Airport Garden in Santacruz (which has some cute model planes), Kaifi Azmi Park in Juhu (where all the trees and plants have a little placard in front of them which has their botanical name, a little bit of history and info. Cute!). Then there’s Rajesh Khanna garden (yes!) in Santacruz that has a toy train. Patwardhan Park in Bandra (which has a musical fountain) and the fancier Carter Road promenade (where, sometimes, you can catch a performance) or the Jogger’s Park (which incidentally also has a Juhu variant), and, of course, the Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Borivli which also has boating and a toy train that works once a year.