How it all works

It's like giving your family's details to the person at the door once, and never having to again.

1. They give a phone number or email. If the family is already known, a sign-in link goes quietly to its email, and the house says so when they send.
2. They name everyone in the family, with birth dates (their own is needed).
3. They tap where in Uttar Pradesh they come from; that district lights on a small map.
4. They say when they joined, one memory of home, who brought them, and what other families may see.
5. Everything typed is kept on the phone as they go, so a dropped signal loses nothing; it is sent when the signal returns.
6. The Worker files the family, checks whether their email is on the association's members list, and tells the board if it might be; the board confirms the match by hand.
7. A welcome email goes out, and the family is signed in on that phone.

Why: a family should introduce itself once, in its own words, and be known after that.

It's like being recognised at the door by your name, or by someone who knows your family.

1. By email: the house sends a link that works once, for thirty minutes. The link opens a page with a button, so an email scanner can't use it up.
2. By phone: any adult's number in the family, then any family member's birth date.
3. The answer is the same whether or not someone is on file, and repeated tries are slowed down.
4. On a shared computer, "shared device" signs the family out when the browser closes.

It's like the treasurer at the table, who knows the children's price and who is a member, and writes you a receipt.

1. Anyone can book; a signed-in family ticks who is coming from its own list.
2. If the phone or email belongs to a member family, the member price applies by itself, and nothing about that family is shown.
3. The Worker works out the price on the server: early bird by date or by the first so many tickets, age bands on the day of the gathering, children under each gathering's free age free, places left.
4. They choose whether their family's name shows on Who's coming.
5. They pay by card (built, switched on when the house moves), or the booking is kept and the board confirms how to pay.
6. The ticket is a page at an address no one can guess, with a code for the door, a calendar entry and directions. A copy comes by email once it is paid; the family's name joins Who's coming then too.

A gathering sold elsewhere (this year's Diwali) shows a Buy tickets button to that page instead.

It's like the printed list at the door, except it updates itself and never runs out of ink.

1. The board opens the door app from the dashboard and shares its link or code with the volunteers. It stops working the night of the gathering.
2. The volunteer searches a name or scans a ticket's code. The list is kept on the phone.
3. A check-in is saved on the phone at once and sent when there is signal. A second check-in for the same family asks first.
4. Walk-ins are added at the door with how they paid: cash, Zelle, check or no charge.
5. Each check-in lights a lamp on the hall screen: families here tonight, and how many people.

It's like the photo album and the guest book from the night, on one page that keeps filling.

1. From six hours after the gathering ends, the page leads with "Last time" and how many families came.
2. The evening's page shows who came (from the door's check-ins), the photos from the evening's Google Photos album, and a code to add more.
3. A family that booked or came can leave a word, up to three; it shows at once with their family's name.
4. Their ticket now reads "You were there", with the same box for a word.
5. On their family's page the ticket joins a row of stubs: every gathering they came to.

Photos are added to Google Photos as before. The house reads the album's public share page; if that ever stops working, the page shows the album's link and code alone.

1. On their family's page, a family taps Send your invitation; it opens WhatsApp, Messages or email.
2. The new family opens it: "The [family name] invites you", then Come home, which greets them with that name.
3. The question "Did [that family] bring you?" is filled in; they can change it.
4. If they say yes, and they are new to the house, the two families are linked and the inviters get an email.

A gathering shared from a family's ticket carries the same invitation.

1. The membership room says what it gives: member prices, booking first when the board opens a gathering early, the January meeting, a place on the members list.
2. A signed-in family confirms and pays; a new family gives a name, email, phone and a birth date first.
3. Once paid, the family is a member, with the year it joined, and is added to the members list. A welcome follows.

1. In the dashboard, Events: when and where, who can book and from when, capacity, prices by band and early bird, the program in English and Hindi, contacts, and the album link afterwards.
2. "Copy to next year" carries everything but the dates, status and photos.
3. The overview opens on the next gathering at a glance: days to go, families and people booked against capacity, money in, who still owes, early birds left; on the night, check-ins.

1. A reviewer enters by name and a passcode, or is already in as a board member.
2. A Note button pins a note to the exact spot on any page: typed, spoken, or a picture.
3. Where a room needs real people's words (how UPAGP began, each president's years, why families joined), a card asks for them. The reviewer speaks or types, in English or Hindi.
4. Words show on the page at once, and a voice can be heard with Listen. An Admin can take any of them down.

Why: the house never puts words in a real person's mouth.

It's like the aangan of a house: the sky changes, and every room opens off it.

The courtyard follows Philadelphia's season and hour (morning, afternoon, godhuli, the cow-dust hour of dusk, and night), or the hour you choose. A first visit opens with a short scene that ends where we live now, skippable; a calm setting shows still pictures instead. The menu draws the house from above, with five wings, and holds this device's settings: the hour, language, text size and movement.

It's like an album that turns its own pages as you scroll.

Keepsakes of Uttar Pradesh are drawn as you reach them; families' memories of home are pinned among them for families who have come home. A line crosses from Uttar Pradesh to the Delaware Valley. Then a lamp for each year, lit as you pass, with the president who took up the lamp, the gatherings held and the families who joined. The presidents have a room of their own: the lamp, hand to hand.

It's like a grandparent's finger moving across the map as they talk.

Braj, the western Doab, Rohilkhand, Awadh, Kannauj and the central plain, Prayagraj, Bundelkhand and Purvanchal: for each, what is spoken, celebrated, made and tasted, with photographs from Wikimedia Commons, credited under each. Families who have come home also see how many of our families come from there. The Sangam (where the Ganga and the Yamuna meet) and Lucknow have their own rooms.

It's like the invitation, the noticeboard and the album, in one place.

Each of the four gatherings wears its own colours. The year is a ring of months. A gathering's page tells what it is, then this year: date and place, the program drawn as a thread of lamps, the price table, the contacts for that evening, and who's coming. Past years sit as a shelf, each opening its evening remembered.

It's like a paper stub that turns into a photograph.

Before the night: a code for the door, who's coming, what was paid, a calendar entry, directions, and a share button that sends the gathering's page, carrying the family's invitation. After the night, if the family was checked in, it reads "You were there".

It's like your own shelf in the family home.

A family photo, a thread drawn from your district in Uttar Pradesh to where you live now, everyone in the family, your year with UPAGP as a ring, every gathering you came to as stubs, a memory of home, who brought you, an invitation to bring another family, how others find you (email, phone, your name on Who's coming), your details and your language.

The directory searches by name, town or district; it has no list to browse. The map of families shows how many live in each town and come from each district; families who have come home can open a district to see who is there, with their memories. The Web of Welcome draws every family at the year it joined, with arcs from the family that brought it; it plays the years, and stands upright on a phone.

Overview, Families, Match (possible members-list matches, confirmed by hand), Events, Bookings, Door, Sponsors, Pages, Notes, Own words, Narration (recordings for the Listen buttons), Emails, a daily check, exports, and printable table cards and paper forms. A board member marked as an Admin is let in with their own sign-in; a passcode is the other way in. Match lists families who may be on the old members list, for the board to confirm.

A sign-in link, a welcome, a ticket, a note when the board finds a family on the members list, a sponsor's thank-you, "they've come home" to a family that brought another, birthday greetings, and each morning a note to the board. In English, in one letter design. Until real email is switched on, they are kept in a test inbox for the board.

At eight each morning in Philadelphia (seven in winter) the house checks that its tables and front page answer and that no email failed the day before, notes whether email and card payments are switched on, sends the day's birthday greetings, and writes the board a short note.

It's like a printed invitation, instead of a bare address.

When a link to any room is shared on WhatsApp or by message, the preview shows the room's title and line in its own colours, with the lamp in its doorway, in English or Hindi. An invitation's preview carries the inviting family's name: "The [family name] invites you to UPAGP".