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  Home Page » Features » Columnists » John Peel » The Ties That Bind India Native Makes Return Visit To Durango

The ties that bind: India native makes return visit to Durango

Without water, a seedling does not become a tree. Without guidance, a student does not become a doctor or engineer, or learn a trade.

And without Unni Sadan, an after-school center created by Johnson Oliappuram, perhaps many children in a small village in southern India never would enjoy the riches life offers.

This is the message Oliappuram, who goes by Jagdish, brought back to Southwest Colorado last week after a 2½-year absence.

Although he lived here for nearly five years with his American wife and is a U.S. citizen, Jagdish finds his heart is back in his native India.

After less than a week here, he’s scheduled to leave Durango today, and fly back over the world’s oceans, almost exactly halfway around the globe. He’ll return to a country of a billion people, where your chances of being financially prosperous are slim. But your ability to be spiritually prosperous is better, and that’s the calling to which Jagdish has been drawn.

Perhaps you have met the man. Earlier this decade, he worked as night-shift supervisor at the DeNier Youth Center, and periodically cooked Indian dishes for Durango Natural Foods.

Maybe you crossed paths last weekend, when he talked Friday at a local church and Saturday cooked an Indian meal at Rylee Mac’s Market as a fundraiser, proceeds going to his center.

Unni Sadan offers the impoverished children of Thrissilery, a mountainous region in the state of Kerala, an opportunity to further their education.

For the “Adivasi,” the term for Indian aboriginals, education can bring emancipation from a caste system that, although not existent in a legal sense, still pervades the Asian country.

His message about teaching children, especially the socially downcast: “I’m training them to be happy, regardless of what the outcome is. You can dream. In order to give them that dream, we need to really free them, mentally.” His message about values, which he calls “one of the main things we need to inculcate (yes, he said inculcate) in children”: “There is nothing that can go beyond love.” About poverty: “I can have money, but I can be poor in spirit. ... Poverty goes beyond material stuff.” The Adivasi “have been pushed aside from the mainstream, so much so they don’t have social standing,” Jagdish says.

By law, all Indians are entitled to education until age 14. But that education comes in what he says are poorly managed schools.

Unni Sadan is an after-school program that 30 to 35 local youths can walk to. Jagdish and other teachers help the kids with schoolwork and host other activities. On Saturdays there is dancing, and on Sundays – Jagdish never takes a day off – there is TV.

He gets this question a lot: What motivates him to help these kids? The answer lies in the past.

Johnson Oliappuram was born in southern India to a Catholic family. (Although a minority, Catholics are prevalent in the area. St. Thomas is said to have visited in the first century.) He joined a Catholic religious community at age 15 and remained for two decades, earning two degrees and serving as a teacher.

He left after he concluded he could do more to unshackle the youths – to inspire them, to allow them to dream big – by going beyond religion. That was something the brotherhood would not allow.

So he abruptly left the church and joined with a woman – who came to India via Marvel, in southwestern La Plata County – to form Ramana’s Garden. Ramana’s, in northern India, is dedicated to empowering women and children in a rural area.

Ten years ago, Jagdish married the Marvel woman, who in India goes by Prabhavati Dwabha, and they ran Ramana’s together.

After their time in Southwest Colorado, Jagdish decided to start his own center. He took money inherited from his parents and bought an 11-acre plantation in Thrissilery.

Those who know and support him say he is an outstanding teacher and very inspirational.

Says Sarah Sumner, who hosted Jagdish during his Durango stay: “He’s an amazing person with amazing talents. He has a calling to work with kids. ... I believe in helping people who are doing good work.” Sumner is donating 10 percent of the November profits from her business, Fusion Interiors, to Unni Sadan. Her “five-year plan” includes a visit to India and the center.

Jagdish’s future plans for Unni Sadan include a boarding school and a vocational training center.

He believes in what he is doing because he sees changes in the youths and their confidence growing. He sees the sparkle in their eyes.

“Sometimes I am a witness to what is happening. It is more powerful than I am. ... I feel now I can’t stop it from happening.” johnp@durangoherald.com John Peel writes a weekly human-interest column.