Planetarium and the Vishweshwariah museum - a study in contrast

Last Thursday my boys and I visited the Nehru planetarium. It was a school holiday for them. We wanted to see the 12:45 p.m. show on the solar system. I have already covered the trip itself in another blog. To summarize - we made it in about 40 minutes no thanks to some hare-brained traffic light logic along JC Road. At the gate of the planetarium the guards stopped us and informed us that there would likely be no show as there was not enough patronage. They need to have at least 20 people attending - something that has not been put on their internet site. (The capacity of the theatre is 200). We waited till about 1:00 p.m. and it was evident by then that there would be no show. There were just 3 people (i.e. my boys and I) waiting. So we looked around the place and I was talking to one of the security guards. he said that this cancellation of shows was now quite routine as there were not enough people turning up. He said that no effort is being made to attract people to the planetarium. He was right. In a city of 6 million people you would think that getting 20 people to a planetarium would not be difficult. I wrote a ltter to them offering some suggestions and I got a response(!!!) thanking me. Moving on... As we had anyway stepped out of home and driven a fair distance,I offered to take them to the VITM. So we went there. What a contrast. Even on a working day the place was quite full. The entry fee was very reasonable at Rs.15/- per head. Almost all the exhibits worked. There is a new hall called Science for Children which was great. My boys had a great time there. It was comparable to the Singapore Science Center without some of the bells and whistles (Mcdonalds, ice-cream stalls,etc). Lots of kids had come and were trying their hand out at different things. I would recommend this place whole heartedly to anyone, especially people with children. Lots of cut away models of IC engines, physics experiments, etc. Regards, Srivathsa