A remote and rural life in India takes you back in time about as far as you might be able to travel here in the 21st Century. Ananda Nagar is situated in the Bihar region of Eastern India, about a day's train ride from Calcutta when the trains are on your side. The region is steeped in old Indian tradition.

Skills are limited; resources scarce. Villages crop up in the semiarid countryside as families grow. The wives travel to their husband's village. As children follow, the small compound of a single family gets expanded, daughters leave, new daughters-in-law increase the size of the family. The sons are given the chance for what education can be found, the daughters must be content with learning traditional way of providing for a family.

There are presently 2400 boys in school in the Ananda Nagar region, and about 20 girls. Ananda Nagar itself is developed as model townships of Ananda Marga, and the project comprises of multidimensional service programs in the field of education, culture, ecological balance, ideal farming, water conservation, self-sufficiency by cottage, agro and agricultural industries.

The Institute is part of a Multipathy treatment project established in1990, based on the "Composite Medical Science" vision of P.R. Sarkar to create a perfect healthy society.

Pundag-our train station... The many faces of transportation... The local bicycle shop.

Baby crying (before Acupuncture!)... A local boy ... A villager at his daily work... Sisters with nice smiles for the camera!

Local kids play while their mothers divert the river into their rice paddies, using just rocks and their sore backs.

The local market convenes twice a week ... Local woman walking home from market ... Dada's home, a quiet place to talk.

Ananda Marga students getting out of high school for the day ... The younger children ages 3-12 at one of the Ananda Marga Orphanages ...