Of all the science centres, small or big, Kolkata Science City (India) definitely turned out to be a high-level visibility project. Some places like Bhavnagar or Ranchi have set up small science centres but the local people fondly call these science cities. The real success of the first science city is demonstrated by this public conviction that the country needs many more such facilities.
Saroj Ghose: The man who built Kolkata’s Science City
Trained as an electronics control engineer in India and the US, Ghose, 81, quietly awakened the eager nerd in us by developing a chain of interactive science centres when he served as the director general of the National Council of Science Museums from 1979-97. Winner of the Padma Shri and the Padma Bhushan, he is the only Asian who has been president of the International Council of Museums twice. In October, he curated the Rashtrapati Bhavan Museum Complex, which employs high-tech digital surfaces, holographic projections, animatronics and other kinds of interactive media.
As Science City enters its 20th year, Ghose would now like to see a “Dream Science Centre”, an outline of which exists in one of his research papers, Science Museum, Science Centre, Science City, What Next? This, he envisions, will be a step ahead of Science City—with the emphasis on “imagination”, futuristic exhibits on things to come. The timing couldn’t be better. India celebrates National Science Day on 28 February, an appropriate moment to talk to the octogenarian museum-maker. Edited excerpts from an email interview: