Tara Mandir (Nehru Planetarium)

Tara Mandir — literally 'temple of stars', and signposted in English as the Nehru Planetarium — is a small domed sky-theatre in Khapat, in the newer part of Porbandar, standing directly opposite the Bharat Mandir hall.

• It was built with donations from the Porbandar-born industrialist Nanji Kalidas Mehta (1887–1969), the Mehta Group founder whose philanthropy also stands behind Bharat Mandir and the Kirti Mandir memorial, and it is credited as the first planetarium in western India and among the oldest in the country.
• Two cautions about the potted histories you will read elsewhere.
• The dome carries Jawaharlal Nehru's name in his honour, but he did not open it: he died in 1964.
• And the founding year is genuinely unsettled — travel listings date the building to 1977, but that year rides on a single much-copied sentence that also credits Nehru with inaugurating it on 3 March 1977, the date Mumbai's Nehru Planetarium was inaugurated.
• Treat the year as approximate rather than established.
• The building is deliberately modest: a compact dome of roughly eight metres seating about eighty people, with a projector that wheels the constellations, planets and seasonal sky across the curved ceiling.
• Shows run at fixed slots rather than on demand, and the narration is pitched at schoolchildren and families rather than at specialists, so ask at the counter which language the day's show is narrated in when you check the timings.
• In the entrance area, photo panels from India's freedom movement line the walls — an unexpected pairing of star-gazing and national memory that reflects the town's Gandhi connection.
• Tickets are nominal, around ₹8–10, and worth confirming at the window.
• Opening hours are usually 9 am to noon and 3 pm to 6 pm, with a long midday break, and the dome can close on public holidays — worth a local check if you are building an itinerary around a particular slot.
• Bharat Mandir, immediately opposite, with its large floor relief map of India and carved pillars, is the obvious pairing and keeps to similar hours.
• Note that this cluster is not in the old town: the Kirti Mandir memorial at Gandhi's birthplace, his ancestral house, the Sudama temple and the Sudama Setu footbridge lie roughly two and a half kilometres south-west, a short auto-rickshaw ride rather than a walk.
• Porbandar railway station sits between the two clusters, a little over a kilometre from the dome.
• Porbandar itself is a breezy Arabian Sea town of stone havelis, a working harbour and a slower rhythm than the Dwarka pilgrim belt about 100 km north, and the planetarium anchors its small cluster of civic and educational landmarks.
• Calibrate expectations to a small-town science centre rather than a metropolitan showpiece and it rewards the stop — a genuinely pleasant hour, and a welcome change of pace for children on an otherwise temple-heavy coastal itinerary.
• Because the midday break is long and the shows run only at set times, carry your own water and a snack if you are timing a visit to a particular slot, rather than hunting for a meal between sittings.
• On food, be a little more careful than the guidebook cliche about Gujarat suggests: Porbandar is a working harbour town rather than an inland temple town, and mixed kitchens do exist alongside the Kathiyawadi thali houses.
• Pure-vegetarian eating is still easy once you look — thali houses around Khapat and central Porbandar serve unlimited rotli, shaak, dal-bhaat and farsan, and snack counters turn out khaman, dhokla, fafda and ganthiya through the day.
• Check the board or ask at the counter that the kitchen is fully vegetarian before you order.
• If you eat Jain — no onion or garlic, and no root vegetables such as potato, carrot or radish — say so when you order, since it has to be cooked to request rather than lifted off the standard thali.
• Gujarat is a prohibition state, so meals are alcohol-free by default and drinks mean chaas, lassi and chai.