Ask the Archive
This will be a small, honest Q&A — not a chatbot you talk to as Nana, and not a general AI assistant. It answers questions about him, grounded strictly in what's published on this site, nothing else.
What it will and won't do
It shows the exact source excerpt an answer came from, visibly, not behind a toggle. If it doesn't have a verified answer, it says so instead of guessing. There is no first-person “talk to Nana” mode — putting invented words in a real ancestor's mouth undermines the authenticity this whole project stands on, and that's ruled out permanently, not just for now.
Sequencing
Per the project plan, this gets built once the core content pages are live and the fact base is substantial enough for it to be useful rather than a novelty that fails on the third question. It also needs its own licence clearance before anything from Shende's book can feed it. Not this phase.
Starter questions it will eventually answer
- When and where was Nana actually born?
- Did he really found the girls' school before anyone else?
- What's his connection to the Mumbai railway?
- Why is the statue in the Town Hall and not the Asiatic Society?
- What does the family still hold onto today?