Explore a museum with your pets and kids
Written by Dr.Laxmi Iyer

Museums. Do your children pull long faces? Do you in your own mind wonder whether you should really go out and visit a museum? Have they become forbidden places? Entry restricted ever since you grew up. Museums need not be dusty, musty old forgotten marvels that everybody talks about but nobody likes to visit.

In fact, to visit a museum may be the world's most exciting thing to do after watching a movie, reading a book or enjoying a scrumptious Sunday lunch.

And however much the computer nerd in the family may like to convince you, visiting a museum online in cyberspace is a very different experience from visiting one in 3 dimensional space.

To tell you the truth, museums actually are one of the few living bits of history, heritage, art and culture in the world. Of course, depending on what kind of museum they are, they broadcast loud and clear to the world, the wonders of a bygone era.

Most cities of the world and even the small towns have museums. Often, many parts of a museum are kept in a dusty, half- locked state simply because even the occasional visitor to the place regularly skips those corners of the place.

Imagine what an exciting experience it would be for your pets, kids and all the elderly relatives in your family to step into a museum full of dinosaur remains, or life like statues of the gods and goddesess of Red Indian culture, complete with masks and teepees.

In case, you have a very sleepy looking museum in your home town or city, if you can think of some good ideas to brighten it up, you or your kids are sure to become very special invitees to the museum's special events.

If you visit museums regularly enough, you could even become your city's prominent art and culture expert in that specific area. Of course, one hopes that you will have good sense and interest enough to choose to visit a museum with a subject that does not generate much natural excitement and curiosity.

Then weekends could see you as " the museum expert " with that special privilege of your family and pets sprawling on the lawns of the museums - being photographed by tourists - from your country and round the world - as much a valuable natural wonder as some of the priceless antiques within the museum walls.

This weekend buy yourself a nice, travel guide of cool museums to visit in your town or city. Set aside some time for a round table meeting in your family. Strike off museums which get a majority response.

Now, you have your real museum list...the ones which nobody wants to see.

It's a challenge to your imagination to make those museums inspiring and attractive - a really cool place for the kids of this generation and for people of the world to see. And of course, all the pets of the world too!