National Science Centre, New Delhi turns Thirty-one

It was on this day 9th January, 1992, 31 years ago, that the National Science Centre, Delhi (NSCD) - a constituent unit of National Council of Science Museum (NCSM), Ministry of Culture, Government of India - 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 some nostalgic moments of my association with the NSCD, where I worked in two innings for nearly 17 years (1988 - 2001 and 2007 - 2010). Besides, NSCD is the only centre where I was involved in its development, from scratch. This centre, from bare land to its current status was developed under our eyes, at Pragati Maidan. I was tasked with a responsibility to be involved in not only curating exhibitions – the primary job of curators - but also in the construction - electrical part - of the marvellous castle like building, a creative cranial construct of Achyut Kanvinde, late architect of international repute.

 NSCD has to its credit many memorable moments and achievements.  I wish to recall some of them which are unique only to NSCD. When the centre opened in 1992, it was the first science centre under NCSM to boast of an Escalator which was so beautifully blended with the largest energy ball exhibit – an art installation of its kind and the first of its kind in its scale and size in NCSM – in which the visitors could see nylon balls perform several acrobatics passing in loops to learn in an immersive way, the concept of energy and its transformation – potential to kinetic. The escalator traversed the visitors from the reception lobby in the first floor to the third-floor entry to the Heritage Gallery, immersed in an experiential learning of the concept of energy, from looking at the energy balls which encircled them performing various acrobatics.  

 Then there is the Information Revolution gallery, which was curated in an unorthodox style, during the period of its development and opening in 1992. This gallery went on to receive the coveted Dibner award instituted by the Smithsonian Institution. No wonder even today - 31 years later- the introduction and three other sections of the gallery has remained almost the same, primarily because of its extraordinary appeal and connect with the visitors. Incidentally, I was one of curators involved in the development of this exhibition.

 While there are innumerable other achievements of the centre, I am attempting to present and highlight some them in this post. 15th August, 1995 marks the dawn of internet in India, introduced by VSNL, under the leadership of the veteran telecom engineer, Mr Brijesh K Syngal. It had huge hiccups and technical issues, when it was launched in India. The silicon city of India – Bangalore – did not have a direct dial up facility for logging on to the internet for which they had to place an STD call to one of the three metro cities – including Delhi – which was one of the cities to provide internet, when this facility was launched. Moreover, there were very few corporates, companies and institutions and government institutions, which had the privilege and luxury to be connected to the internet, which is now ubiquitous and omnipresent and inextricably linked to our lives.

In less than one year of the launch of internet in India, the National Science Centre Delhi was connected to the Internet in June 1996 and this facility was introduced to the visitors, primarily students, a rare and distinguished achievement for NCSM, courtesy the Cyberskool facility which we introduced at the centre in partnership and with sponsorship from Intel. I was incidentally the Project Coordinator of this project and from Intel side, the current NASCOM president Ms. Debjani Ghosh was the lead for this project. The significance of this project was so profound that the head of Intel, Dr Craig Barrette flew down to open this facility at the NSCD.

Another event which I remember vividly is an International Micro-mouse and Software competition, which was organized in 1997 at the NSCD. This event witnessed participants from several countries and the task of making an exacting standards maze was taken up successfully by NSCD. Courtesy late FC Kohli, former Chief of TCS, this event was completely sponsored by TCS and was organized at NSCD in collaboration with Computer Society of India.

Much before the dawn of the era of CSR, NCSM started soliciting sponsorship for the exhibitions and events and one such Mega event was the Dinosaur Alive Exhibition which NCSM had developed and marketed so very successfully under the leadership of Dr Saroj Ghose, whose brain child it was to develop this exhibition departmentally in NCSM. This exhibition was a roaring success and it also earned revenue from stalls and eateries, which were a big hit at the exhibition venue. Aping this success, the successor of Dr Ghose, Mr I K Mukherjee, led creation of two such large travelling exhibitions with an eye on generating revenue. These exhibitions were Giants from the Backyard and Science of Sports. Although none of these exhibitions came anywhere near the success that the dinosaur exhibition received, yet both these exhibitions received sponsorship from Discovery Channel and ESPN Star Sports at NSCD – a first of its kind for NCSM. A specially developed promo video advertisement of 20 seconds was shown in the Discovery Channel. And this too was the first for NCSM, and I had the honour to be the lead for getting the sponsorship from Discovery Channel and ESPN Star Sports, and the proposal which was prepared thoughtfully for soliciting sponsorship became some kind of a template in NCSM. I had the honour to prepare this document and also to be the lead for the marketing of these two exhibitions in NSCD.  

How I wish I could write many more such remarkable achievements of NSCD a first for NCSM, but I shall end with two more. The year 2010 was remarkable for NSCD, it was the year when Delhi hosted the Common Wealth Games. NSCD was involved in several projects during this occasion, which included the complete renovation and upgradation of the Nehru Planetarium project and that too in just 5 to 6 months, which the team of NSCD achieved so successfully. NSCD was also involved in works related to organising the Aneesh Kapoor exhibition at NGMA Delhi, in taking up several works of signages and chariot covering for the National Museum, works of creating a safe and aesthetically looking cabinets to house the Gandhi Memorabilia at the Gandhi Smriti Darshan Samiti. The year ended with an astounding exhibition “Network of Innovation” which travelled to India from the Nobel Museum, Sweden. NSCD was successful in hosting this exhibition against some tiff competition from other museums in Delhi – NGMA and National Museum - which had far better resources and facilities.  

One of the main problems that ails the scientific institutions in India and so also other institutions is the bureaucracy and so has it been for the NCSM, where the administration which is supposed to be a facilitator, often times ends up becoming a spoil sport and kind of a bully with Himalayan egos to add to the problems. There was one such egoistic head of the office – Administrative Officer – at NSCD, who had come on a deputation and boasted of an IAAS Indian Audit and Accounts Service - to his credit, which made him feel taller than everyone else, including scientific and technical staff. I recall an instance where most of the staff were in for a rude shock of getting a tax deduction at source without any consultation or information from the Administration. Unfortunately, most of them ended up on my desk seeking for redressal of their problem. I submitted a cogent and a well-reasoned note to the Director requesting him for his indulgence to refund the money to those who were not under tax slab. But then this note hurt the Himalayan ego of the head of office, and what followed would have been a harrowing experience for me had I not engaged myself in self learning rules including the duties and responsibilities of the DDO under the Income Tax Act. An allegation of misrepresentation of income details by me in the previous year was made against me including removing some documents from my records to target and silence me. But then those were the days when I was made up of a different mettle, particularly against the administration who were trying to behave like big bosses.

The note that I had submitted to the Director ran front and back including bringing on record the above-mentioned false allegations against me. My tenacity to face this and so also my put across on papers my defense and argument were a shock for the so-called administrative head. While he did end up getting defeated and pay back the wrongful deduction of tax to staff there were some interesting exchanges on the note. However, in the notes I had purposefully avoided use of niceties like please and kindly when it comes to addressing the egoistic Head of Office. Even as he admitted of his “inadvertent error” of wrongful deduction of tax from lower staff, the officer wrote on file that “the officer” - meaning yours truly – should be educated by the Director to respect the seniors and use proper etiquettes while writing notes. It is another matter that he was not senior to me in scale but definitely he was far senior in age. When I disagreed to his plea to address him with words like please and or kindly, since he was senior, he ended up saying that he may not be senior in hierarchy but definitely senior in age. This too was countered by on the note with a statement which will remain etched in my memory. I wrote “ If age is the sole criterion for seniority then fossils are to be worshipped “ and sent it back to the Director. It was here that the Director decided to call us face to face to resolve this issue and call it a close.

 I am writing this episode to since even today that habit of bossing over by administration has continued for long and that too inconveniencing the staff with even monitory losses. But then NCSM is a small microcosm of the powerful bureaucracy the India faces which had forced the then PM Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee to say in one of the India Science Congress that “ our scientists are becoming prisoners of procedures rather than achievers of excellence” Will this end and of so when is a million dollar question, more so since I have witnessed this in NCSM.

 Long live NSCD and may it continue to inspire millions of visitors, particularly students to harvest benefits of application of science for the societal good.