Practitioners in the city of Pune held a "Truth,Compassion, Forbearance Art Exhibition" in a large exhibition hall on the outskirts of the city on the four days leading up to and including Easter Sunday. Pune is located about 150 kilometres from Mumbai, India's largest city, formerly known as Bombay.
Practitioners from other cities joined to lend a helping hand. On opening day there was just a trickle of people coming to the gallery. Practitioners stepped up the distribution of art exhibit flyers, and put up posters all over town in public places. There were interesting reactions to the poster. Some important stores and public telephone offices first refused to let us put up the posters, thinking they were sales promotion posters. But once they saw the poster they were moved by the beauty of the painting and gladly let us put up the posters.
Practitioners also thought of some innovative ways to draw crowds. In addition to putting ads in local papers, there was an ad put on a television station, and huge posters were mounted on bamboo framework and put up at the entrance of the exhibition hall.
Many more people came to visit the exhibition from Friday through Sunday. One person said "Pune is finally having an international art exhibition of high calibre". A professor from a local college said "This is an exhibition with a meaningful theme and more people should be exposed to it so that they get to know about the horrors of persecution".
A martial arts instructor stood transfixed in front of the torture paintings and said he knew about Falun Gong being a good cultivation practice. He said that he had learned the exercises many years ago. He bought copies of Falun Gong and Zhuan Falun [Editor's note: Zhuan Falun is a guide to practitioners cultivation] and said "I know of the mass killings conducted systematically by the Communist party but I am shocked to know the extent they go to persecute innocent Falun Gong practitioners. We should consider ourselves lucky that we can practise any spiritual discipline in India".
Another person shook his head in disbelief when he saw the paintings of different torture methods. He said "I can't believe this happens in this day and age, even though I've read about the various kinds of Chinese torture." A journalist commented "With the recent killings of farmers allegedly done by communist cadres in a special economic zone that was supposed to be set up in West Bengal, I can believe what is happening to Falun Gong practitioners in China".
Local papers covered the 4 day event and conducted interviews with practitioners.
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