AMNH

One of the recent weekends, we happened to visit the American Museum of Natural History, here in NY, just besides the vast Central Park.

The museum, with a little weird name (which does not really suggest what this museum is all about), is one of the most famous museums in the world. They have an unparalleled collection of fossils, bones, specimens, models and media pertaining to topics from biology, geology, archeology and astronomy.

After deciding (bravely) to get up early in the morning and being ready by 9 am, we were just waking up to the tunes(?) of the-always-ugly alarm when it showed figure of 9, and as we reached the giant doors of the gigantic building by 11, we were already hungry, and thinking about lunch! The ticket window operator started explaining us about the current exhibits & shows and how we are going to cover them all before 5, we realized we are going to play a losing battle against time. After a while, he himself got so confused, and started scribbling so many time-permutations on our ticket, that we thought as if planning phase is going to eat up all the day. Obviously, his hand-writing was so ghastly, only comparable to Vaidya Khadiwale, in Raman Baug (Replace with any doctor, who does not want his prescriptions to be read by any other, but his regular Medico), that we just ignored whatever he had written, and started running towards elevator sign with nerves and urgency of someone missing his first flight in life.

The first exhibit about Charles Darwin was a walk-through commemorating the legendary scientist, who put forth, easily the most controversial theory in recent history, The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. It was of course very interesting to go through his life and times, through various pictures, videos, maps, specimens he collected. As I was thinking that this exhibit is a wonderful treat to high school science-enthusiast students, and they must be getting a hell lot of information out of this, an innocent kid blew my impressions a thousand miles away. Standing in front of some bird specimens, that showed how the same species varies a little bit across continents, adapting to ecological variations, he shouts, “Heyyyy guyyyys, Look what I found here…these are way coooooler than the previous ones !”, and I realized…Perception is Everything. It was also fun to see how Darwin was mocked by the then-famous and respected. One creative cartoon, showed how a monkey, sitting on a donkey, changed in stages, to become a bearded scientist, sitting on a horse, carrying a book “Theory of Evolution”, mocking the complex theory beautifully in just a few sketches. No need to tell who the bearded scientist was. Not surprising, that Darwin waited for almost 20 years, (yes 20 years), after completing the theory, to publish it. He himself must have been unsure about the results that his now-famous Beagle Voyage* came up with. The theory provoked a very strong criticism from religious leaders along with the scientific fraternity, as it put forth a then-revolutionary idea, that humans are in the same class as monkeys, and we share common ancestors, contradicting the holy notion that we all are children of almighty.

An IMAX theater inside the museum, was running a show about Galapagos Islands, where it is thought, that Darwin first struck the idea of evolution. This island features some of the most unique animals, like Iguanas, found nowhere but here. It was a National Geographic types movie, and though I already knew most of the content it had, it was fun to watch on big screen.

Our next destination was Rose Center for Earth & Space, which is a part of museum, for the space shows. The dome theater, called Haydon Sphere, is an awesome structure by any standards. Upper hemisphere of the bulky sphere, has a screen, projected by the projector from bottom, chairs surrounding the projector. The sound system is breath-taking, with vibrations all around you, making the term “immersive environment” a practicality. Tom Hanks was the star narrator of one of the movies, throwing in thrill, glamour and education all at once, at the in-awe viewers (or, dare I coin - experiencers).

After hanging around a bit in the museum shop, (of course – JUST hanging around, as the greenback tags at these famous places make your eyes turn green.) there was time for yet another exhibit, a lighter one this time. After all, what can be lighter, and eye-soothing, than a butterfly! There were scores of them, wandering effortlessly, in the artificially maintained temperature and humidity. After a loooong period of time, I felt like I was sweating hell, and my leather jerkin felt like a heavy, steel armor. Catching them on lens was a wonderful experience, as all efforts were needed to get close, and click. I remembered the days when, as kids, we used to roam around with butterfly-traps, made from bushes found nearby, and felt guilty remembering how we used to keep them in plastic bags, only to die after some days. The experience helped though, with some successful close-ups.

We were so exhausted after this exhibit, (with only half personal sized pizza in stomach since morning, thanks to tight budget, as we always have here), that we barely ran through the vast halls filled with tons of specimens, videos and text, hardly reading anything, and came home, only to remember that, I will surely be a member of the museum, if I happen to stay here for a longer term.

* A historic 5 year expedition of South America, intended for survey, wherein also-on-board Darwin studied thousands of animals and samples to come up with initial notes, which became the theory of evolution.