Bhopal – the grandfather trees
In 2006, when I first visited the site of the present novitiate in Bhopal, it was an empty soggy field, with one huge mango tree and a line of magnificent…
Kolkata – Tiwari’s Story
Tiwari, a friend of the Bow Bazar community of Brothers, spent some time one Saturday morning sharing his spirituality with them. He told this story of Lord Vishnu, who was…
Kolkata – Ashivad and the quiet Mohammad
When the noisy swirl of day students has emptied the playground of St Joseph’s Bow Bazar, in downtown Kolkata, a quieter little procession of rather ragged kids enters the roomy…
Kolkata – how to cope with a cyclone
Dum Dum Road is one of the most choked arteries in Kolkata’s network, struggling with the traffic running between Dum Dum Station (north end of the Metro) and the airport,…
Bongera – the school in the jungle
Tucked away in the south-east corner of Jarkhand, Bongera is a collection of villages where some of the poorest children we teach walk, in sandals or bare feet, upwards of…
Asansol – eco-parks and garbage wars
Two big schools, St Patrick’s and St Vincent’s, and a trades-training centre, are now embedded in two eco-parks, thanks to the work of Brother Frank Gale, many young men training…
Kurseong – 130,000 trees later
Kurseong, at the far north end of West Bengal, clings to the steep slopes where the Himalayas rise from the plains of the Ganga. In the rainy season, one falls…
Chandigarh – how far can we plan?
Chandigarh, capital of two states (Haryana and the Punjab), is a planned city – designed by Le Corbusier, no less, in the 1950s. St John’s College, Chandigarh, shares this inheritance…
Mt Abu – the forest finds friends
St Mary’s High School, Mt Abu, in Rajasthan, is one of the most beautiful sites for a school in the world, between a deep lake and forested hills (also a…
Challakere – a new city on red sand
Sunflowers and ground-nuts (peanuts, to some of us), still waiting for the rains in their sandy furrows, have brought an economic boom to Challakere. Surrounded by villages where people are…