| Shame on Silicon Valley  It’s the holiday season and most of us are probably out with our families discovering new places or reuniting with friends and relatives at old haunts. One of the best pastimes, especially with children, is to visit museums. I was in Bangalore recently and decided to take my 10-year-old son Aneesh to visit the famed Visveswaraiah Industrial and Technological Museum in the heart of Bangalore. Named after Sir M. Visvewaraiah, the brilliant engineer and former dewan of Mysore, the museum was once the central attraction of the city with its amazing array of gadgetry and gizmos. As a student in the early 70s, I had visited the museum several times and among the things that fascinated me was the “room of the future”. If you entered the door and clapped, the lights would come on, another clap and music would play and a robotic tray offered you a glass of juice. There were other exhibits which allowed you to discover the joys of science.  Sadly, decades later, the museum is in a sorry state. Most of the ‘try me’ gadgets housed in the various exhibits were not in working condition. Even if there was an attempt to update it with the latest in technology, these have been done either so poorly or are badly maintained. The room for the future I had seen had given way to an exhibit on the so called wonders of biotechnology. Alas, it was such a clutter of information that there was absolutely no joy in seeing them. The Indian Space Research Organisation had created an enclave for its exhibits but here too maintenance was poor and there has been no attempt to get the latest developments in. My son was soon bored and impatient. And an important occasion to teach him about the wonders of science was lost. In contrast, when I had taken him and my daughter, Aditi, to the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC last year we spent hours and hours in the museum doing truly extra-ordinary things. Why should India’s science capital and it hub have such a shabby science and technology museum? Why can’t the gurus of our Silicon Valley come together and, in an act of great philanthropy, fund and build one of the finest technological museums in the world for our children to see? Why can’t the Science and Technology Ministry spend its money wisely to invest in other cities and boost the quality of science museums across the country? Or, should we presume, nobody really cares.
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