-
Visit to Railway Museum Chennai
For many years now I have been wanting to visit this Railway Museum inside the ICF (Integral Coach Factory) Perambur in Chennai. This small museum recently celebrated its 12th anniversary too and I managed to go to it today only. What’s the occasion you might be asking? As parents many of us complaint that our kids are watching TV or with Tablet Devices all the time, not spending time outside or have total lack of interest on history or science. Mostly we complain and not do anything about it. I decided I will make a change with me. Today and Tomorrow I took leave from work and decided to take…
-
Places in Singapore I visited in 2013
For last three days, I am in Singapore exactly after a year. The first thing that impresses you when you land in Singapore is Changi Airport, the Airport keeps continuously keeps reinventing itself and is maintained better than new. Though it is not new, displaying the number of bags in each flight in the conveyor belt is a nice touch On Monday after having lunch with a friend, I went to Arts Science Museum near Marina Bay Sands. They had a special show for display “Mummy – Secrets of the Tomb” thanks to a partnership with British Museum. I was not impressed with the few items from Egypt that were…
-
Vivekanandar Illam
Any one visiting Chennai’s famous Marina beach can’t miss seeing this beautiful circular building in bright pink colour on the opposite side of the road facing the sea. The building is a historic landmark, now called as Vivekanandar Illam (means House in Tamil) in remembrance of Swami Vivekananda staying here for 9 days in 1897. This was immediately on his return from USA where he delivered the historic speech on Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893. The building was earlier called as Castle Kernan and popularly as Ice House due to the fact it was here British stored the Ice blocks they brought from cooler regions of North America…
-
Computer History Gallery
After nearly 8 years of being at one location, we moved our office (Vishwak Solutions) from T.Nagar to Guindy recently. It turned out we had accumulated a lot of Computer Peripherals, Accessories, Software & Books which are no more in use and more of antique pieces. The collection starts from my early days with technology (From DOS 4 and FoxBase era). There is simply no space in the new office for these. So I setup a small gallery in the library area at the T.Nagar building. The gallery (kind of a micro museum) contains Early iMac versions of Microsoft Hardware (keyboard, mouse) floppies, CDs Indian clone of Microsoft Office Sun…
-
Philosophy at an unexpected place
This follows my post on visiting the Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore. After a few minutes into the museum, I was taking photos with my iPhone (seen below), an elderly Caucasian gentleman came to me and asked how is my experience with iPhone. Generally, at public places, I keep to myself, but when people start a conversation I love to engage on it provided it is interesting! The gentleman (his English showed German American accent) started by saying how Digital technologies (iPhone, Internet & Mobile) have impacted profoundly Human race, the way we think/learn/invent have changed phenomenally in the last 10 years. Nothing else has affected evolution in such a short time…
-
Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore in 2012
Last week, I was in Singapore for 2 days. After doing a lunch meeting at Singapore Cricket Club near Padang, I had the rest of the day free. I got a suggestion that I visit the “Asian Civilisations Museum” that was just opposite on the other side of the road. Next 4 hours it was a learning experience for me at the museum. Till the 1980s the building known as Empress Place Building was used for various Government Departments. In 1989 it was converted to be a museum and in 2003 it was completely transformed into Asian Civilisations Museum. The museum has various galleries – Southeast Asia, West Asia/Islamic, Singapore…
-
Shathapthi Express & Bangalore station
Travelling to Bangalore from Chennai has been one of the easiest flights before 2001 and this resulted in tight Airport security. In those days, I have done many morning-evening same-day return trips leaving home at 5:30 AM and coming back home at 8 PM. As Bangalore’s traffic grew exponentially and the change to the new Bengaluru International Airport happened, it made these trips difficult. It takes you to travel from Airport to City (or another way) for about 2 hours even by Vayu Vajra buses, which I like. Today for a business meeting around 12 PM, I travelled by Shathapthi Express (Train 2007) from Chennai reached Bangalore at 10.55 AM…
-
My visit to Government Museum, Chennai
After completing the RBI Exhibition it was not even 1 PM and I was already in the Government Museum, Egmore campus, so why not go inside?. I don’t remember having gone inside the Museum in Chennai (சென்னை அருங்காட்சியகம்) before, so I was not sure what to expect. Will it match my expectation of being a World Class Museum (or) will it be just like any other Government maintained, public place in India, well designed at the time of opening but poorly maintained and deteriorating? The Entry fee for Indians is Rs.15 and about Rs.200 for your Still camera. After spending nearly 3 hours inside the museum and seeing most of the…
