It was on this day 9th January, 1992, 30 years ago, that the National Science Centre, Delhi (NSCD) was dedicated to the nation by the then Prime Minister of India, Shri PV Narsimha Rao. While wishing the Centre all the very best, I am inclined to recall my close association with the NSCD, where I worked in two innings for nearly 17 years ( August 1988- April 2001 and March 2007 to December 2010) and narrate two interesting anecdotes that I had the honour to experience.
The first incident of course relates to the inauguration and its arrangements. The NSCD was successfully opened on 9th January, 1992, by the then Prime Minster Shri Narasimha Rao in the presence of a galaxy of dignitaries including the then HRD Minister Mr Arjun Singh, Prof HY Mohan Ram, Dr AP Mitra, Dr Saroj Ghose and all the founder Directors of the National Council of Science Museums (NCSM).
A couple of days before the NSCD was to be opened, a major goof up had happened at the Siri Fort Auditorium, where the public address system had failed when the Honourable President of India was addressing the gathering. This was all over the news and had caught the attention of Dr Saroj Ghose, the then Director General, NCSM. Dr Ghose had therefore camped himself in Delhi and was personally overseeing all arrangements for the PM Visit to the NSCD and its inauguration. He had tasked key officers with specific duties and responsibilities and that included yours truly as well. I was tasked with the arrangements of all audio visuals and PA system arrangements inside the auditorium, where the inauguration was to take place. Besides me he had also tasked other key officers with different responsibilities. All of us had burnt our mid night oil and had put in all possible efforts to make the opening a grand success. Dr Ghose was privy to the hard work we had all put in. On 8th January late evening around 8 PM or so Dr Ghose called us to take final stock of the arrangements for the opening of the NSCD by the Prime Minister next morning.
After all briefing was done with and when we were about to break for the day, Dr Ghose showed a small piece of white paper and asked us if any one could guess what is written on the paper. No one hazarded a guess. Dr Ghose was such a towering personality that even senior Directors and officers like, Mr RM Chakraborty, G Nagarajan, IK Mukherjee, PK Bhaumik, S Goswami , TK Ganguly, Amit Sarkar etc. hardly ever ventured into such acts, so how could the junior mortals do so. When the silence was getting eerie, he announced in his inimitable commanding voice, it is his resignation, which is dated 10th January, 1992. When we were trying to come to terms with the situation, he told us that he is very confident that everyone of us has worked very hard to make the event a grand success and so will it be. However, he said, if anything untowardly happens and some thing or the other fails, he would own up the entire responsibility of the failure and would submit his resignation, which he had prepared and brought to show it to us. He asked us do you want that to happen? We unitedly and with one voice shouted no Sir. Dr Ghose jokingly said, if so keep all your resignations in your pocket ready like what he has done. He then created a relaxed situation for all of us by sharing light hearted moments in the making of the centre including showing that rare face of his to crack jokes to ease our tensions. He left us all by telling that tomorrow’s program will definitely be a great success. We went completely motivated and geared up for the opening. Here I learnt my first lessons in leadership at NCSM - to lead from the front.
The second experience that I wish to share is something which I called ‘ From Denial to Discovery’. Incidentally I presented a paper on this subject to other fellow museum professionals in a workshop presenting a case study of the NSCD and how it managed to double its visitors in the year 2007-08.
Ever since the opening of the NSCD on 9th January 1992, barring one year, the average visitors to the centre had hovered around 2 Lacs per year until the year 2007-08. In fact the visitors had gone far below 2,00,000, from the year 1999 or so onwards primarily because the backside entry to the centre from the Trade Fare exhibition from Pragati Maidan had closed down. The only time the visitors to the NSCD had come close to 4,00,000 was in the financial year was in 1996-97, when we had organised that famous ‘Dinosaur Alive exhibition’, which was a roaring success and in just 45 days we had receive more than 2 lac visitors and tonnes of gate entry.
I was posted back to NSCD from Mumbai in March 2007 and this time I was tasked to be the Director of the Centre. Since I had worked in Delhi before and had also known all the curators and other officers of the centre, I was expecting a smooth run and so it was. Immediately on my taking charge I organised a officers meeting to brain storm on various issues, which could benefit making the centre more popular and how we could increase the foot falls. I took the liberty that I knew all of them for many years, and announced to them a challenge that I had tasked ourselves with - to double the visitors to NSCD in the financial year 2007-08 and make it 3,50,000.
Little did I realise that being a colleague is completely different than holding a post of a Director to the colleagues. I was in an illusion that my challenge and the brain storming meeting that I had with my colleagues, would have energised them. But then, contrarily, I learnt that there were discussion among the officers that how Tughalaqi and stupid was my target. I got this feedback from those channels, which are dime a dozen in most government offices, who are always there to report such matters, whether you want or not, to scurry favours. I overlooked the feedback and kept speaking again and again about the target and held innumerable brain storming meetings to find ways and means to meet this target. The education officers and curators concerned worked very hard on whatever we discussed to try and translate that into visitors. One such non visitors were students from the Madrassas who came in large numbers, besides of course many others. We had organised meetings with the Maulvis of these Madrassas and highlighted the role played by great Arabian scholars like Alkhworizmi, Al Jebr and others in the field of science and how the Arabs translated many of the Indian works into Arabic and took them to the Europeans. Though the task was quite tough the Maulvis over a couple of meetings found sense in what we were suggesting and ensured that their students visited the NSCD.
We organised many Principals meet, teachers meet, NGOs meet and also met the top people in the Delhi Government, including the the then CM of Delhi, Mrs Sheila Dixit, and things started falling in place and the visitors gradually started increasing. The first quarter showed increased numbers which further motivated the team. By the time we ended the third quarter in December,2007 the foot fall had touched 3,00,000. By early February, 2008, we had achieved the target of 3,75000 and when we crossed 4,00,000 by end of February the very officers who had clubbed my vision as tughalaqi, joined hands and made personal contributions to purchase sweets from the market for distribution to all staff members when the visitors to the centre had crossed 4 Lacs. I called this moment a moment of ‘denial to discovery’, a great learning lesson ‘that together we can achieve’ an impossible. The target to double the visitors to the centre was not only achieved but it was surpassed by more than 50,000 as we ended the year 2007-08 with an annual visitors of 4,28,000 visitors. The success was truly and befittingly that of the team and I was just incidental to this achievement.
Ever since that year the NSCD has never looked back ( barring the current Covid times) and has consistently crossed foot falls of 5 Lac every year and even touched a magical figure of 7 Lacs before the pandemic set in. I am so very honoured to have played an incremental role in this spectacular achievement.
So very proud of you all my dear colleagues at NSCD, both past and present. Wishing the National Science Centre Delhi a very happy birthday and may the NSCD continue to scale newer and newer heights and be etched in the hearts and minds of all the people of Delhi, who truly are it’s stakeholders.
Images - Courtesy Biswarup Ganguly and Wiki Commons.
Jai Hind
Jai Vigyan Jai
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