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Aug 3, 2007

"Money is only useful when it is moving and flowing, contributed and shared, directed and invested in that which is life affirming." --Lynne Twist

Neurosurgeon Gives $20 Million for Village

He was born into the "untouchable" caste in India, so poor that he didn't wear his first pair of shoes until he went to medical school. Then he came to America, where he made millions as a New York neurosurgeon, once owning a Rolls-Royce, five Mercedes-Benzes and an airplane. But Kumar Bahuleyan felt empty. He reflected on his poverty-stricken background, seeing three siblings all die from drinking polluted water. "I was the oldest, feeling very helpless, listening to the screams of these dying children, one by one," he said. "Their cries stuck in my psyche. Even now it haunts me." At the age of 81, wanting to give back, he has donated his personal fortune -- some $20 million -- to establish a neurosurgery hospital in his village, and has moved back, trading in his Mercedes for a bicycle.