Jumpp, Vile Parle West, Indoors
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Is it possible to have an indoor-play fatigue syndrome? In the last four years, I have scoured Mumbai for entertainment spaces for kids. While I started off being in awe of the fancy indoor places kids have access to today, I now go there reluctantly, hoping and praying that there is for some wow factor.
One such place is Jumpp in Vile Parle, a new, cheerful and shiny space. Since both my kids can no longer be taken to some of the indoor places, I enlist the help of a friend. We walk in with four kids – two six-year-olds, one nine-year-old and one 11-year-old. The place caters to toddlers and children up to 10 years old. The play area is divided into two zones: the toddler and the junior zone. The toddler zone has two sections, one in which you allow babies to crawl around and another where there is a baby-soft mechanical merry-go-round, a toy house and swing. Already, there are three mommies with what look like four-month-olds in a gated section for babies.
The junior zone has the slides, ball pool, swings, crawling tunnels and pathways. And if that isn't enough, there is also a trampoline that allows three kids to jump around at a time. The owner, Sanjana, is finicky about cleanliness and it shows: Jumpp has a team of professional cleaners who work the place to a shine every Monday, when it is closed. Toddlers have to strictly be accompanied by a caregiver or a parent, but at the junior zone, adults are not allowed. So if you are looking for time to bond with your child, this might not be the place to head to.
My parameter for liking a place is safety and its staff. While CCTVs and maintained equipment tick the safety box, the staff members at Jumpp seem to have been cursory picks. They are curt with the kids, don't engage with them, look bored and huddle in front of the play area, unaccustomed, it seems, to the air-conditioning. They are not in uniform and it's thus also difficult to identify them.
Is there anything that sticks out as a good memory from Jumpp? No. It is clean, but it is ordinary. Yet, by 6 pm, it is crowded with kids. Would I travel from Bandra, where I live, to Vile Parle if my kids were six-year-olds? No. Yet, it is summer. It is hot. And if I lived in Vile Parle and wanted to look for a play place I was sure is safe and clean, and where my kids could be active, I would surely head here.
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