{"id":244983,"date":"2020-01-09T10:58:43","date_gmt":"2020-01-09T05:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/?p=244983"},"modified":"2020-01-09T10:58:43","modified_gmt":"2020-01-09T05:58:43","slug":"this-startup-is-helping-survivors-of-partition-see-their-homes-again-with-vr-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/this-startup-is-helping-survivors-of-partition-see-their-homes-again-with-vr-tech\/","title":{"rendered":"This Startup is Helping Survivors of Partition See Their Homes Again with VR Tech"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes nostalgia can spawn the most extraordinary bursts of creativity. Like Oxford University, a startup Project Dastaan <\/em><\/strong>is making use of virtual reality devices to help Partition survivors see their ancestral homes, just like they remembered it.<\/p>\n

This initiative is using detailed VR environments to help 75 participants relive their childhood. They can now see their ancestral homes once again prior to the events of 1947.<\/p>\n

The process involves the use of bespoke 360-degree digital experiences specific to each participant.<\/p>\n

\"Project
Saida Siddiqui, who fled from India to Pakistan on the eve of Partition, reconnects with her past with the help of wearable technology. (Image credits: Asian Review)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

ALSO READ<\/p>\n

Rishi Kapoor Asks Pakistan to Turn His Ancestral Home into a Museum<\/a><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"Project
Saida Siddiqui, a participant of ‘Project Dastaan’ and a Partition survivor residing in London<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Project Dastaan<\/em><\/strong>, is a ‘VR peace-building initiative<\/em>‘. Hence the project’s name ‘Dastaan’ which means ‘story’ in Urdu.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Project
Sayyed Abrar, one of the 75 participants in Project Dastaan, watches a 3-D simulation of his childhood from his home in Fresno, U.S. He and his wife, Musarrat, migrated from Pakistan in 1947 and have not been able to visit since. (Courtesy of Asian Review)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While some are swept by nostalgia, others are happy about the Indo-Pak partition. This project aims to present a whole spectrum of sentiments about the Partition.<\/p>\n

How Project Dastaan Came to Be<\/h3>\n

It all started with the co-founders Sparsh Ahuja and Ameena Malak. They both sat down to swap partition stories. Even though the founders didn’t have their own stories, they ended up reminiscing about their grandparents’ experiences before Partition.<\/p>\n

\"Project
‘Project Dastaan’ director Sparsh Ahuja<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

These weren’t just fond childhood memories but stories of trauma that involved living in refugee camps to escaping ethnic violence post-Partition.<\/p>\n

\"Project
Sparsh Ahuja’s grandfather Ishar Das Arora, was 7 at the time of Partition. Ishar Das Arora moved to Delhi “after living in many refugee camps and escaping mass-scale communal violence.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Besides the director Sparsh, all the other team members have similar stories of grandparents uprooting their lives to move and yearning to see their childhood homes.<\/p>\n

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai and influential figures in the VR world such as Gabo Arora, a former creative director of the United Nations, support the project.<\/p>\n

\n

ALSO READ<\/p>\n

Woman Who Abused Traffic Warden in Viral Video, Goes Viral (Again)<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"Project
A villager from Phambra, in the Indian state of Punjab, reconnects with a project participant from the same village who now lives in London via video call. (Courtesy of Asian Review)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The project has also earned 30 thousand US dollars in funding from the ‘CatchLight Fellowship<\/em><\/strong>‘. CatchLight is a San Francisco-based nongovernmental organization.<\/p>\n

The Dastaan<\/em> team was even invited to speak at the British Parliament. Meanwhile, the team is also working on collecting the stories of Partition survivors in a documentary ‘Child of Empire<\/em><\/strong>‘.<\/p>\n

\"Project
Ahuja kneels as other team members film 360-degree shots at the Jama Masjid mosque in Old Delhi. (Courtesy of Asian Review)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

via Asian Review<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes nostalgia can spawn the most extraordinary bursts of creativity. Like Oxford University, a startup Project Dastaan is making use of virtual reality devices to help Partition survivors see their ancestral homes, just like they remembered it. This initiative is using detailed VR environments to help 75 participants relive their childhood. They can now see their ancestral homes once again […] More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":245003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1298,2199],"tags":[],"adace-sponsor":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-244983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture","8":"category-featured"},"wps_subtitle":"They get to see their ancestral homes once again.","img_urls":{"thumbnail":["https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Project-Dastaan-3-364x205.jpg",364,205,true],"medium":["https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Project-Dastaan-3-758x426.jpg",758,426,true],"full":["https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Project-Dastaan-3-e1578549024370.jpg",1000,563,false]},"author_name":"Ummara Sheraz","categories_name":["Culture","Featured"],"title_text":"This Startup is Helping Survivors of Partition See Their Homes Again with VR Tech","related_stories":"https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts?filter&per_page=4&categories=1298,2199&exclude=244983","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244983"},{"taxonomy":"adace-sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/adace-sponsor?post=244983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}