My Nandagram, U.P., school saga and picture

July 14, 2008

Near Vrindaban was a small, impoverished village called Nandagoan, where Krishna had spent some years as a young boy. It remained an extremely rustic place, built around a small lake next to a barren hill, and consisted of an old rundown monastery, a few small shrines, and about a dozen dilapidated huts. The village had no electricity, no money, not even a primary school for the children.Years before, the villagers had bequested a piece of land to Swami Bon in hopes that he would build a primary school there so that their children could learn to read and write sufficiently to study the holy scriptures. Impressed by Hrishi's success in raising funds for the ashram, Swami Bon now put him in charge of the entire Nandagoan Primary School project and promptly dispatched him to visit and survey the village.Nandagoan was like a slice

of ancient history preserved intact. Bullock carts remained the main means of transport, and both the bullocks and the carts appeared as though they'd been plying the dusty ruts of Nandagoan ever since the time of Krishna. Village life revolved entirely around the single temple and its attendant shrines, which were dedicated to Krishna's father Nanda and his mother Yasoda. The village was hot, dry and dusty, and naked mud-caked urchins screeched as they vied with mangy dogs for the few spots of shade and even fewer scraps of food to be found there. Everyone except the monks at the temple was illiterate, and everyone there including the monks was malnourished. Still, Hrishi thought the village possessed a certain antique charm.He surveyed the land provided for the school, took various measurements, and spoke at length with the resident sunyasi (Ashram Maharaj) at the temple about the design of the school.

Unfortunately, his visit was abruptly cut short when he was attacked and bitten by a vicious rabid dog in the village. He had to return immediately to Vrindaban, where he underwent a series of 15 painful rabies shots in the abdomen. But he took it all stoically: no one had said the spiritual path through life would be easy!Hrishi drew up his plans and made a list of items that needed to be collected by donation: cement, bricks, iron girders, stone slabes, tools, and trucks to deliver it all to Nandagoan, plus cash to pay for labor, fixtures, and furnishings. Hrishi was not the least bit daunted by the scale of this assignment. He was confident in his faith and determined to satisfy the swami who had sheltered and nurtured him for so long.Swami Bon launched Hrishi into the field by instructing him to first pay a visit to a man in Bihar state known as "The king of coal mines." One of the wealthiest

men in India, this powerful magnate owned over one hundred coal mines and lived in a town in Bihar called Dhanbad. Swami Bon assigned one brahmachari to accompany Hrishi and serve as his personal cook and assistant, and he gave them a small amount of cash to get started.** "In India, gurus never give their disciples enough money to complete any journey or assignment. They give you just enough to get moving, then you're supposed to fend for yourself. We had enough money to take a train from Mathura to a small town about halfway to Dhunbad. There we got off and found the local dharmashalla, which is a kind of dormitory set up as charity by wealthy individuals for wandering monks and mendicants. So we crashed there for the night, and the next day we went around town and begged enough food and money to get us all the way to Bihar."Hrishi and his assistant disembarked at Dhunbad and went

directly to the coal magnate's house. It was a huge villa enclosed by a high wall and protected by armed guards. Hrishi identified himself to the gatekeeper and requested a meeting with the big boss. The guard replied with a big belly laugh, then waved his cudgel at them and sternly warned them to go away and keep clear of the mansion.Undaunted, Hrishi persisted. He went into town and called upon the coal magnate's private secretary at his office. He introduced himself, explained his mission, and deeply impressed the secretary with his devotion and erudition. Word quickly went up that an American monk in traditional Hindu robes wished permission for an audience with the boss to discuss an important charitable project near the sacred village of Vrindaban. Soon the magnate's eldest son agreed to meet Hrishi, and he was so enormously impressed that he invited Hrishi and his assistant to stay as his personal

guests in the family mansion.** "So back we went to the house as honored guests - right past the guard who'd threatened us earlier - and met the whole family. they gave us comfortable rooms, assigned us servants, and fed us the best food I'd eaten in India since my first meal in Delhi with the Brahmin lady and her husband."The "King of coal mines" was, as are most wealthy Indians, a devout Hindu. After listening carefully and with growing interest to Hrishi's presentation, he agreed to donate the enormous sum of 200,000 rupees to the project -- 100,000 up front and another 100,000 after construction was already in progress. Without a moment's delay, he called for his checkbook and wrote a check for 100,000 rupees, which he handed over to Hrishi. He also instructed his son to buy train tickets back to Mathura for Hrishi and his assistant.When Hrishi arrived in Vrindaban and presented the

check to Swami Bon, the swami beamed with surprise and satisfaction. "You see," he told Hrishi, "you are very good at this work. People believe in you! Now I want you to go to Delhi and begin collecting the bricks, iron, cement, and other materials we require to start building the school."Swami Bon sent Hrishi to Delhi with a personal letter of introduction to Hansraj Gupta, who was the Mayor of Delhi as well as a big shot in the iron industry there. Thanks to the swami's introduction, Hrishi had no trouble getting past the mayor's protective phalanx of guards and secretaries, and he was warmly received by him. Mayor Gupta enthusiastically endorsed Hrishi's project and arranged for him to speak about it before the Rotary Club, Lions club, and other civic organizations in Delhi. He also wrote Hrishi a personal letter of introduction on official stationary and gave him a list of people to approach for

contributions in the city's sprawling iron works district. In order to encourage his fellow iron bosses to follow his own example, Gupta made a personal pledge in his letter of introduction to contribute six iron girders to Hrishi's project.Delhi's iron district is a cacophonous, gritty, pot-holed, open-holed, open-guttered patch of parched wasteland, crowded cheek to jowl with rusty tin shacks, bullock carts, screeching coolies, and a few fat rich men who sit like kings on their thrones in ramshackle offices. Mayor Gupta's letter, and his pledge to contribute six girders, paved a path through the muck and mire of this district and led Rick straight to the iron kings' desks. Almost without exception, these otherwise hardnosed, tight-fisted magnates matched the mayor's donation girder for girder. As Hrishi went door to door showing the next boss what the last one had pledged, donations snowballed until he had solicited all

the iron girders required to construct the school.But not everything was peaches and cream for Hrishi as he made his rounds.** "I got more insults than I did girders. Some of these guys would sit with their feet up on their desks, teeth all red from chewing betel, toss me a ten-paise coin and tell me to get out. Others accused me of being a CIA agent and threatened to call the police. Muslims spat on me because I was both Hindu and white, and Hindus asked me what the hell I thought I was doing wearing Hindu robes and told me to go home. But I persisted anyway, and I got the job done."Meanwhile, Hrishi's health continued to deteriorate rapidly. What had earlier been diagnosed as chronic dysentery had now become a severe case of colitis. His digestive functions slowed to a trickle, and he could eat nothing but the blandest foods without suffering severe discomfort.

Sometimes the cramps in his gut got so bad that all he could do was roll around on the floor howling with pain. But still he persisted.Next Hrishi had to figure out a way to haul all the iron girders from Delhi over to Nandagoan, so he paid a visit to the trucking companies that serviced Delhi's iron industry. These were mostly owned by Sikhs, a jovial, open-hearted sect of former Hindus who had once been India's warrior caste. Hrishi had no trouble dealing with them, and soon he obtained pledges to provide ten trucks to transport the girders to Nandagoan. In order to pay for the labor required to load the iron onto the trucks, Hrishi solicited the necessary funds by giving a speech before the Lions club in Delhi.After all the iron girders had been safely delivered to Nandagoan, Hrishi turned his attention to the next stage of his campaign -- collecting stone slabs. He decided that the place to go for those

was Jaipur, the "Pink City," famous throughout the ages for its quarries and exquisite stone carving. From his friend the Mayor of Delhi he obtained an introduction to Kasi Prasad Srivastava, chief of police of Jaipur and an ardent devotee of Lord Krishna.** "He was a big, strong brawny man, kind of a cross between Broderick Crawford and Ed Asner. He was the kind of a guy that whenever he walked into the police station, everyone jumped to his feet and saluted. But he was also an incredibly pious man and was deeply devoted to Krishna, so he invited me to stay as his personal guest at the police dormitory (kotwali) in Jaipur."Srivastava wrote Hrishi yet another letter of introduction, this one introducing him to the biggest stone magnate in northern India, a man named Mr. Tewari, who had a huge quarry in a remote corner of Rajastan called Karoli, about five hours by bus from Jaipur. Forearmed with

the letter, Hrishi boarded a bus for the long hot ride to Karoli.Karoli was a hard, rough-and-tumble town, and the sudden appearance there of an American dressed in the robes of a Hindu monk caused quite a stir. After making a few inquiries around town and waving his letter of introduction from the chief of police of Jaipur as a warrior wields a weapon, Hrishi finally found his way into Mr. Tewari's exalted presence.** "He was without a doubt the fattest man I've ever seen in my life. This guy could have made a good living as a fat man in circus. He must have weighed at least 1,000 pounds! He was so huge that wherever he went he had to be carried around in a pallenquin by six servants. He was also a chain smoker and went through at least 100 cigarettes a day. He couldn't say a word without wheezing and coughing." "This man also had it in his head that no one

else on God's green earth knew more about religion than he, so he treated me like a naive little kid, even though I was a brahmachari. But I played along with him, was very humble in his presence, and he actually took a liking to me."Mr. Tewari promised to give Hrishi all the stone slabs he needed under one condition: Hrishi would have to arrange for the stones to be transported back to Nandagoan. So Hrishi had to spend another two weeks in Karoli going around to all the trucking companies there to solicit free transport for his stones. This he accomplished, and when he returned to Mr. Tewari to show him the written pledges from the truckers, Mr. Tewari promised to send the stones up to Nandagoan as soon as possible, and Hrishi went back to Vrindaban.But the fat man failed to deliver, so Hrishi had to return all the way from Vrindaban back to Jaipur to find him and persuade him to fulfill his pledge. Tewari

wheezed and huffed with excuses, but he finally agreed to sign the order releasing the stones from his quarry. Hrishi then had to take the bus back out to Karoli again to present the order at the quarry, and he spent a whole month there living in a shack in order to personally supervise the cutting of the stones into slabs of the correct size and shape for the school.Finally, he had all the slabs loaded onto trucks, and with Hrishi sitting in the lead vehicle, the entire convoy rolled out of Karoli for the long dusty drive up to Nandagoan. When they arrived in the village, they were met with resounding cheers and festive celebrations by the villagers, who by then regarded Hrishi as a sort of savior sent by Krishna to build their school.Meanwhile, bricks and tools had already been purchased with the first 100,000 - rupee donation from the coal king in Bihar, leaving only the cement to be collected. This turned out to be

the most difficult item of all to obtain, for it was strictly controlled by the government and carefully rationed for maximum profit by the producers. By now thoroughly familiar with the ropes of fund-raising in India, Hrishi went straight to the top: he visited the biggest cement producer in India, the Karnork Cement Company, and requested a personal meeting with the boss at the company headquarters in Delhi.Mr. J. D. Dalmia, chairman of Karnork Cement and at least a dozen other major enterprises in India, was at the time one of the richest men in the entire world. He was also one of India's most famous philanthropists. As usual, Hrishi first befriended his personal secretary, who also happened to be an accomplished scholar of classical Hindu studies, and soon he was received by the big boss himself.In his simple monk's attire, Hrishi entered one of the most sumptuous offices in India and met a man wealthy beyond

imagination. But Mr. Dalmia's demeanor belied his great wealth and power. Neither fat nor ostentatious like most Indian tycoons, he listened with interest to Hrishi's proposal and was so impressed with Hrishi's devotion that he not only agreed to donate and deliver all the cement Hrishi required, he also invited Hrishi to stay at his mansion that night and extended a standing invitation for Hrishi to stay there whenever he visited Delhi.** "This Dalmia's house was like a huge hotel. It had a lobby with a marble reception desk for guests and a switchboard with about a hundred lines in it. There were doormen, bellboys, maids, chauffeurs, gardeners, all kinds of servants running around in various uniforms. It was unbelievable that one man could own such a huge house. He was the Indian version of J. Paul Getty!"When all the building materials had finally been delivered to Nandagoan and

construction was underway, Hrishi made another trip back to Bihar to collect the second 100,000 - rupee check from the coal magnate there, and with that he completed his mission. The whole thing had taken him six months to accomplish.The villagers at Nandagoan were ecstatic over the completion of their new school - the first school ever to exist there - and Swami Bon beamed with pride and joy at Hrishi's achievement. A big celebration was organized to inaugurate the school, and holy men from all around the region were invited to attend the festivities. An enormous iron vat was set up in the courtyard to cook sweet milk-rice for the entire village and all the visitors who attended the inauguration. It took a full day to cook and yielded about 250 gallons of fragrant sweet rice simmered in milk, the sacred food of Lord Krishna. It provided the biggest meal that any of the villagers in Nandagoan had enjoyed in living

memory, and the inauguration of the school was the greatest event to transpire there for many centuries. Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.