Acknowledgments

It was the Founder Chairman of ThoughtWorks, Neville Roy Singham, who made me believe that the People’s Archive of Rural India in its present form was possible. Roy thought the project was nuts, but loved its audacity. Drawing from a (physical) photo exhibition of mine in 2011, he laid out the possibilities of a fully curated photo exhibition – and more – online. We were able to use the original text panels online too, and you can see the outcome of that effort on Visible Work, Invisible Women.

At every stage, subsequently, Roy’s ideas and energy pushed forward the making of PARI. No acknowledgement of his contribution can be strong enough.

When PARI was still a fledgling notion, Prof. Ananya Mukherjee-Reed, now Dean of Faculty, Liberal Arts & Professional Studies of York University, Toronto, made a critical contribution to its ideas, concepts and clarity. The strong education-related component of PARI owes a great deal to her influence.

Volunteer techies from ThoughtWorks India made the PARI platform possible. Without them, none of this would have materialised. Many helped in immeasurable ways, but Manoj Mahalingam (then with TW) and Satish Viswanathan played key roles in getting us off the ground. Siddharth Adelkar was and is central to our overall effort.

As PARI enters Phase 2 of its existence, we have Aditya Dipankar making an astonishing difference to the website’s design and appearance. We also have the inimitable Thejaswi Puthraya who is there for us, from before the launch, on all matters tech and some beyond.

Scores of others helped in big and many ways: