On the last night, during my meditation in a Japanese temple, I thought about the money I wanted to give him --- either he would piss it away, or someone would steal it from him. So if I wanted to do something for him, I should rather give him an education. I then began wondering how on earth I could commit to something like that in Bodh Gaya, thousands of miles away from me, for the next ten or fifteen years of his life. When leaving the temple, I shared my idea with Alan, telling him I would not be leaving the next day as planned, until I find a way of doing something for this boy and his brother.
Back then, there was only one full time Westerner in town, a Canadian suffering from leukaemia. We went to see him. He had all the right ideas and suggestions. We found someone who would take charge of the kids’ education. I would send him money monthly and he had to send me tapes showing the kids’ progress.

A year later I came back and the kids from being semi-savage had changed considerably. I thought that if we can do it with two, why not with fifty. That is how the idea of building a school came up. And gradually we had 700 kids and a staff of 70. We had a little campus in Bodh Gaya, and satellite schools in five villages for the younger kids. For about ten years it developed, from the mid eighties onwards.
Then the corruption became more and more obvious. I kept warning them. The teachers would come late to school. Everybody would get away with something. And the kids were being shown the worst examples. So finally I discontinued the school and sent the children to the Jai Hind school instead. I also am sending some of them to the Maytrea Project’s school. I have about 30 kids in college. I just started a kindergarten in one of the villages, and a computer school in Bodh Gaya. So I am still involved, but not to the same degree.

... contd.