Though I keep driving through the road many times and few years back many times I even kept going to the same campus to Science City, it has been decades I went inside the Birla Planetarium in Kotturpuram,Chennai. When it opened during my school days we were thrilled to see the spherical theatre showing cosmic shows.
Growing up, many years of traveling and seeing Planetariums around the world, Birla Planetarium lost its charm for me. But I have been wanting to take my son to this place. Today it so happened a friend of my son had his birthday party here and I took him for it.
The show was short and interesting, but the theatre/seats/interiors all are aging and badly maintained, typical of any place in India maintained by Government. Apart from the show there is very little to see or learn in the planetarium, which looks like a place from last millennium.
It is unfortunate state Governments in India and bureaucrats have complete apathy to education, encouragement and curiosity development in science with youngsters. Building and maintaining science museums, planetariums, cultural museums are not only educational but a big draw of tourism and income if run properly. These shouldn’t be done by Governments, Indian Corporates and NGOs should take up this idea as part of their CSR programs and run it.