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Here is the piece of history. In the forties when the world recognised the genius of the little man who shook the mighty colonial empire and made the British to free India, the world’s top magazine Life thought it was imperative to publish a cover story on his great man. This little man was Mohandas, called fondly by the people as Mahatma Gandhi. Life magazine sent their best photographer, Margaret Bourke White, to Wardha Ashram, where Gandhi was staying then, with her best camera equipment, to shoot Gandhi. As she arrived she was taken to Gandhi who, to her great shock, was sweeping the Ashram floor. Even greater shock awaited her. When she asked Gandhi to be photographed, he very politely yet firmly refused to be photographed by her. It was madness to turn down a golden opportunity to become famous in the world by appearing on the cover page of Life. She asked, “Why not?”She had the best credentials, the best experience and the best camera equipment. What more? Gandhi gave her his toothless smile and said that it was because she did not “understand” him. If one did not understand the subject, how could one represent or express it? For the first time in her life, an ace professional was told that one must understand their subject before one expresses it on a canvas, film, paper or any other media.

‘How can I understand you?’ She  asked. Gandhi put the broom in her hands and replied, ‘By doing what I am doing’. That was the best way of empathy. The rest is history. Margaret Bourke-White did what Gandhi did, understood him and then went on to produce greatest photograph of Gandhi, spinning with his charkha, which appeared on the cover page of Life. Later the photo appeared as a postage stamp and in many other ways. But what was more important was that it changed the whole life of Margaret Bourke-White who became a Gandhian and stayed with Gandhi all her life.

This is precisely the process behind the product and its life changing power. I see many designers behaving just like Bourke-White before she met Gandhi.       

Excerpted from ‘An Appetite For Wonder: The Making of a Scientist’ by Richard Dawkins