web site story

Ahimsa

The Genesis

Web Site Story

The story of this site begins a few months ago. I think it was in April Dr. Kalpana Desai informed me that she was planning an exhibition on Ahimsa. I was curious and interested-- as to how can one talk about this without proselytizing. At that meeting we talked about having a web site for this exhibition. Months passed and the exhibition took shape in her mind. The date for the opening was fast approaching. I keep reminding Dr. Desai for the graphics and the material to be included in the web site. She gave a print of the logo for the exhibition and some slides.

But how to digitize these images presented a problem. I approached my friend Jagdish agarawal and scanned the logo there. But I wanted something to be with me for a long time as I had to figure out how to scan images and process the subsequently. My friend Chandu Mhatre came to a very timely help as he lent his Nikon 1100S slide/negative scanner with his laptop to me. All the graphics you see here are scanned using his scanner.

I had all the images which I could put in the first website posting. But the description which accompany the images was to be yet created by the museum staff. Just less then a week remained and still just scanty material came through. One evening, on Oct. 1 Dr. Desai came to my place to look at whatever was created. We worked hard but soon we realized that it was an hopeless endeavor. The written material was still to finalized. Even with best of intentions, this did not happen. So, we gave up the idea of substantial site which will do justice to the exhibition. Instead we felt an introductory site, which will announce the exhibition can be created. That is how this site came into being. Even a few final paragraphs of material were given to me this afternoon which I have included.

While my quest for the relevant material was my main concern, my friends, Malav Ravel worked on converting some of the images into backgrounds which can be used. All the backgrounds on this site are result of his effort. Finally I posted the site for testing purposes this morning. So my friend Peter Doshi in US can look at. And as he looked he had many suggestions as to how to streamline the site. We worked across the continent for 4 hrs. generating the final design for the site.

Of course there is absolutely no funding for this work. All the work thus far has happened gratis. We continue to search for sponsor to give us even barest of tools like scanners, workstation type computers which are needed for graphic processing.

For the author of this note it has been a journey to realize that we in India have something very special to offer to the world, a way of life which for ages have been lived out, practiced and evolved by the people of this continent.

In this war torn world, India has role to play-- as prophesized by Gandhiji. We, as the people of this subcontinent have something to give, an approach to living which can hopefully help resolve some of the issues we face globally.

We, who have created this site hope that you, a visitor, to this site enjoy this and imbibe the essence of non-violence and take this journey to becoming a person practicing it. Thanks for your attention and hoping that you keep visiting this site as much much more to come.

Dr. Raj Mehta
Oct. 5, 1997.