Visit To Dada Vaswani Mission In Pune

When I said I am going for Dada’s darshan, two more women followed me. They thought I was to meet Dada closely and have a personal meeting with Dada J P Vaswani.

In reality, I was on my route to see Dada’s darshan, a museum. I had heard great reviews about this museum but never had opportunity to visit it during my trip to Pune. On this trip, this was my priority. At the first opportunity that I got, I went there with my cousins.

We reached the campus of Dada Vaswani mission twenty minutes before the actual show time, that happens hourly. One devotee came up to us and volunteered to show us around.

We stood facing the impressive white building. A beautiful heritage building, originally a Jeejeebhoy Castle, was handed to the Mira School. For several years, it was lying vacant and then occupied by Deccan College and Research Institute. Gangaram Sajandas, a close disciple was successful in negotiating with the owner of the building, Lady Jeejeebjoy, to purchase it for Brotherhood Association. After the death of Sadhu Vaswani in 1966, the Association was renamed as the Sadhu Vaswani Mission.

At the far end, amidst the beautiful garden, is the sacred Samadhi that enshrines the holy ashes of Sadhu T L Vaswani. We walked up to the Samadhi taking in the peaceful vibrations in the air.

On the right side, is a huge tree planted by Sadhu T L Vaswani way back in 1958. This 58-years old tree has blossomed over the years and still stands strong.

We walked further to the back of the building. We came across Mathuribhao Karamchand Mahbubani Hostel for girls, inaugurated at the hands of first Vice-President of India in 1965. Behind the main building are two school, Primary and secondary Mira schools.

For a brief time, we browsed through some spiritual books at a book store in the front near the entrance of the mission.

The clock ticked on and we headed towards Darshan Museum.

The museum is one of its kind, three dimensional, interactive, 3d holographic and impressive.  The museum is built on a space of 9500 sq. feet and ranks as number one on trip advisor. It is biographical depiction of Sadhu Vaswani life narrated through series of multimedia light and sound shows combined with 3d projection system creating an impressive experience.

After the show, the word spread that J P Vaswani would give a brief sighting to a small group of his devotees. We rushed to his chamber and were happy to meet him.

When I said “Bless me Dada” he replied “I need your blessing too.” Such humility and love flows through this Divine soul. His words still rings in my ears. He said- “Help the weak, the needy and the poor. Do as much as you can without any expectation of fruit or rewards. But if you cannot help personally, at least pray that somebody else can help them….”

The Amazing Sea Shell Museum At Mahabalipuram

The trip from Puducherry to Chennai is not very long unless you stop by some interesting places of interest on route. I loved the road trip, because it was very scenic, specially during sunset when the red globe reflected on the calm waters that ran parallel to road. There were many interesting places we saw on route but ‘India seashell Museum’ was the highlight of this trip. 

Seashells museum is located at southern side of Mahabalipuram. A short walking distance from 5 Rathas (just follow the sign) although we did take a longer route by our vehicle.

There was entrance of course, Rs50 for the seashell museum and Rs30 more for the aquarium and an extra Rs100 if we wished to click pictures. But we spend more money in the seashell boutique that had amazing handcrafted thing made of shells like vases, boxes, key chains, fridge magnets, flowers, frames and also wall hanging.

It was sunny afternoon, the beautiful bright white entrance with rock garden and pond on one side and large shell installations displayed in the compound and on roof top of each building was very inviting, the compound itself had tiles in the shape of waves with embossed sea-animals and fishes. All around were the murals and graphics of shells in different shapes and form.

Far end, at the back side was a sea food restaurant, which we didn’t visit cause most of my friends were vegetarians.

The AC salon has amazing shells of different shapes and sizes, all in their natural form.

They were just cleaned and exhibited in large showcases against the wall and the tiny ones in the center showcases. There were display of wide range of sea shells, about 40,000 of them, collected by the founder (K Raja Mohamed) of the museum and their history. 

How beautiful must be that bed of sea where they grow in cluster. The divers are so lucky to be able to go underwater and find them in their natural habitat.

This shell really amazed me. Inside the shell were compartments shaped like a leaf….nature to be admired!!

There were four sections of display and in every section was a large handcrafted piece.

The aquarium was a smaller room with just few fish tanks with rare kind of fishes.

But the most interesting part was the shopping area and fish pedicure corner.

Came back home with few souvenirs from the shell boutiques, that included a shell box too.