"A Virtual Village" for first-time visitors

"A Virtual Village" may be less easy to explore with certain browsers. Updated versions of Netscape and Microsoft Explorer are two browsers which allow ready access. Should you experience difficulty with webpage features, hyperlinks, or the panoramas, you may wish to try another browser.

This website allows you to explore the cyberspace Arampur in a number of ways.

We recommend that you begin with About Arampur. This selection introduces you to the village, its people, and its natural and cultural surroundings. You cannot understand much about this one village without understanding the larger contect in which it exists.

Then, we suggest that you take the Walking tour found in the Scenarios section. This introduces you not only to Arampur but also to the navigation system which will get you to where you want to get to. It points out some of the most interesting features of the village while introducing you to some of its residents. You can also meet people and explore places off the tour map as you want.

From there, you're on your own. Strike out into the unknown any way that interests you.

In My life you will see how some Arampur residents depict their lives using their own photography and captions.

Maybe you'd just like to Go roaming. Go off the beaten track prescribed by the walking tour and explore many of the various neighborhoods in Arampur. You'll soon see how each has its own population, worklife, and character. Each view you get has specific markers which indicate the people or objects with which you can interact. Different markers designate the different topics and scenarios which apply to that person or object (for example, religion or healing). By clicking on the image, you get a short description of the person or object and, sometimes, a resource link to sources of further information.

If you'd rather move with a purpose, choose any of the four Scenarios offered. You can strike out through Arampur with a suggested Indian persona while in search of healing, striving on a pilgrimage, seeking devotional sites, or listening to various narratives about Arampur. You may decide to pursue each scenario while moving at street level and searching for the pertinent sites (while discovering a whole lot else) or, if you're in a rush, just clicking on the places indicated by the scenario map. In this mode, you have opportunities during your wanderings to ask certain people you "meet" certain prescribed questions. You will read a translation of the response and may elect to actually hear the response in the speaker's choice of language (Hindi, Urdu, Bhojpuri, or English).

The Topics selection allows you to learn about various issues of concern for Arampur residents that pertain to much of north Indian life. Explore the dynamics of village life, society, agriculture, business, religion, languages, arts, architecture, and education. Beyond the village puts Arampur in a larger context &endash; a crucial step in understanding its everyday and historical life. All of these topics have hot links to additional sources of information,

Finally, Bibliography, websites, & other resources, provides a host of different resources for discovering more about what you've found in Arampur. These are listed in order from most general and elementary to the most specific and scholarly.

Enjoy your explorations. Go wherever you can. Do whatever you can do. And use the questionaire to give us some feedback about your experiences.