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Golden Avatar Gurukula Newsletter March 2025

We offer this newsletter to our dearmost beloved spiritual master, nitya-līlā-praviṣṭa oṁ viṣṇupāda astottara-sata Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja

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Two Different Worlds

For the past 8 years, I have spent most of my time in Australia working in the corporate sector. However, I have taken the opportunity to save up as much leave as I can to visit Nabadwip on an annual basis for 5-6 weeks at a time. It’s obviously a wake up call when I come to India, a contrast between two very different worlds and an annual wake up call reminding me and humbling me of the opportunities that I have been exposed to and taken for granted during my life. It is said that India’s greatest export is its people. The problem as I see it is that most people in India have to work extremely hard just to survive, what to speak of getting ahead in life. Children are exposed to this harsh reality and then become part of it at a very young age.

It never ceases to amaze me how much a small act of generosity and the small window of opportunity it provides can make a big difference in India. We had a girl join Golden Avatar Gurukula last year in Grade Seven. She had a friend whose brother developed a crush on her which became an obsession. He somehow managed to get all his friends similarly obsessed with the girl, to the point of stalking her wherever she went. Frightened, the girl’s mother pulled her out of government schooling and kept her at home, which made the poor girl both scared and depressed. The mother, looking for answers, came upon Golden Avatar Gurukula as part of our mother/daughter yoga and fitness classes and when she experienced the classes herself, she was so impressed with the teachers and quality of education that she enrolled her daughter in the Gurukula as a student.

With the help of donations, the Gurukula was able to procure a van in late 2023 which enables us to pick the children up and bring them to the Gurukula 6 days a week. This gave the girl an opportunity to continue her education in a safe environment and be transported back home safely at night. Instead of being stuck at home, she now has new friends and a support network. She sees the Gurukula as a blessing that has given her opportunities she never thought that she had.

Having said that, our ability to maintain this month to month is becoming further stretched. India and West Bengal are not immune to the increased costs of living. Three years ago, a 50kg bag of rice was 1500 INR but currently it is 2700 INR. The cost of providing meals has increased over 40% in the past three years and furthermore, we had to increase the Gurukula’s teachers’ wages to enable them to keep up with increased costs of living as well. The challenges of maintaining the Gurukula, this wonderful institution, are an ever present struggle met with hope, faith and the optimism of these special children.

Shyamohan das, Chairman

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A School of Gangubhais

When people think of India, they think of a spiritual place, home to renunciates and truth seekers alike. This is true, however the spirituality of India outside the tourist places like Rishikesh, Haridwar and Varanasi is quite often hidden under a layer of lawlessness, chaos and quite often brutality. One has to search deeply to find spirituality in a place where opportunities for advancement are limited by the lack of infrastructure and replaced by a mob mentality with a short term view geared around survival.

A major symptom of this lawlessness is the problem of child trafficking. Thousands of children, the majority being girls, are trafficked every day. The sale of children and their movements across the state borders take place too. In India there is a famous story of Gangubhai Kothewali, who at the age of 16 was tricked into eloping with her so-called lover only to find herself sold into prostitution. Unfortunately, not all stories have the same ending has hers.

Parents can often get into debt, due to events like floods or ill health making them unable to work, and when these people cannot borrow funds from legal organisations, they go to local “mafias” and then get into unresolvable debt. They can be forced to do things like rounding up other people's children to pay their debts or they could even lose their own children to these "mafias". As an NGO seeking to support underprivileged children, especially girls, Golden Avatar Gurukula is at the coalface of this fight and had to work through such situations when they have come to light. In the past month alone we have had three girls, aged 13-16 targeted by older boys via social media for trafficking.

Unfortunately in many places in West Bengal, there are groups of people operating such rackets through these boys, which have been operating for decades. Some of the mothers of the Gurukula's children were forcibly married by such groups to boys they have never met before. They target girls in their early teenage years and using social media as a vehicle, they communicate with girls through Facebook or Instagram and flatter the girls and often give gifts to the girls to get them in their good books. Once the girls are smitten, they are asked to go for a drive away from the town, invited to go for a trip or even promised marriage. They are asked to keep the relationship a secret from their families but when they leave home, they are drugged and taken by the said “mafias”. The boys get paid according to the age and beauty of the girls, who then get sold and taken far away from their homes, sometimes even overseas, and are drugged and kept for prostitution.

The targeted girls are typically from lower socio-economic families, such as single parent families, children in families where a family member has recently passed or other difficult family circumstances. The Gurukula has been caught in this, as have family members of the girls involved, with threats from the boys to stay out of it amid threats of physical violence. West Bengal is a targeted area because of its proximity to the Bangladesh border.

It is a big enough issue that at times, different schools have banded together as the girls can sometimes skip school to get away with the boys and potentially be kidnapped, and teachers and even their own children have been targeted. Dealing with the issue can range from counselling the kids, building a connection with their parents, and building relationships and awareness of the situation within the local community. When we were not able to provide transportation in the past, that had exposed the children to these dangers. Thankfully, the Gurukula is now able to provide security via transportation directly from the children’s houses, giving the children and parents peace of mind.

The Gurukula’s teachings become essential in this fight. The education, cultural and spiritual knowledge that we provide channel the girls towards becoming beacons of light. By giving support for the girls, we are providing them with opportunities and faith within our teachings that will hopefully prevent them from falling prey to these “mafias” with terrible agendas.

Shyamohan das

How every US$1 is spent at Golden Avatar Gurukula

Our donations fall into two categories - regular monthly donations and one-off donations. Below is a pie chart to illustrate how the regular donations are spent:

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We also use one-off donations for specific items, no matter how big or small. Currently, we need your help for the following:

• new fans (for the upcoming summer seasons)
• new musical instruments (such as mrdangas)
• gardening expenses - for planting vegetables and fruit trees on the land
• hand pumps and/or electric pumps for water
• floor mats (for the children to do yoga/meditation)
• repairs and upgrades to our kitchen and toilets

If you have anything specific you would like to contribute to or if you require more information, please feel free to contact us at goldenavatargurukula@gmail.com

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Treasurer Report

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Apart from one-off construction expenses, overall expenses have increased 9% over the past three months as the Golden Avatar Gurukula has borne the costs of the increased wages for the teachers and also the additional costs of buying groceries. Plans are underway to rely on our farming to cover as much of this as possible but as the crops are seasonal, it will take time to come to fruition. A couple of staff departures have stretched the teachers but we are training some of the graduating year 10 cohort to replace them.

Paying for groceries remains a challenge with the prices going up due to increased costs of living. Prices are expected to increase during the upcoming Holi/Gaurapurnima festive season (in March 2024) due to the rise in demand as well as during the monsoon season (in June - Sep 2024) because of the inevitable transportation issues. Our community outreach expenses have reduced slightly over the last three months but are expected to increase going forward. It is imperative to the Gurukula to reach out to the community when they need assistance.

The amount provided by monthly donors has allowed the Gurukula to build a solid base and manage day-to-day expenses, although this is becoming more stretched and we are looking at ways with your help to increase any regular donations which will allow us to plan ahead and manage the inevitable ups and downs along the way.

Shyamohan das, Treasurer

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Beautiful new artwork and handpainted cotton tote bags and t-shirts available! (Handpainted by the Golden Avatar Gurukula children themselves. Drop us an e-mail for more information.) ​ Buy now

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Dalia, the principal, is a great cook and together with help from the teachers, they prepare delicious, nutritious and wholesome meals for the children every day. She shares her recipe of delicious traditional style Bengali Kichuri. This recipe makes 20 kg of Kichuri - enough to feed more than 100 children and some of their mothers.

Preparation and Cooking Time: less than 1 hour

Ingredients (for 100+ people)

2 kg Tulsi Bhog rice + 1 kg Gobindobhog rice

3 kg dal (usually a mixture of 2 or 3 different types of dal - mung dal, urad dal, chana dal)

2 kg potatoes

1.5 kg leafy greens (such as spinach or any other leafy greens in season)

2 kg mixed vegetables (loki, brocolli, cauliflower, pumpkin, green papaya, snake beans, green peas, etc)

500 g soya chunks

1 litre oil

20 litres water

Spices (exact amounts not specified as Dalia cooks from her heart):

Ginger (ground into a paste), green chillies to taste (optional, ground into a paste), coriander seeds (roasted and ground into powder), cumin seeds (roasted and ground into powder), Bengali panch phoron (mix of 5 whole spices - cumin seeds, fennel seeds, fenugreek seeds, nigella seeds and wild celery seeds), bay leaves, turmeric powder

Method:

1. Soak the soya chunks in enough water to cover, with a little turmeric powder.
2. Cut the vegetables.
3. Heat the oil and add the potatoes. Stir until slightly browned.
4. Add the panch phoron, bay leaves and dals and roast together with the potatoes.
5. Add salt to taste and the water.
6. When the dal is half cooked, add all the vegetables (except for the spinach) and soya chunks.
7. When the dal is cooked, add the rice. Be ready to stir as the rice tends to stick to the bottom of the pot.
8. When the rice is half cooked, add the spinach along with the ginger and green chilli pastes.
9. When everything is cooked, turn the flame to a simmer and add the turmeric powder. Simmer for 3-4 minutes then turn off the flame.
10. Add the coriander and cumin powders, stir and the khichuri is ready.