‘‘Antyo’’ means End and ‘‘Udoy’’ means Rise, so when an orphan‘s life turns towards the new horizon of hope and aspiration, from the finishing point it is called Antyodoy. This is the name given by its founder Sri Balaram Karan, East Medinipur of West Bengal, India.

Twenty five years ago, back in 1995, he once witnessed a little boy searching for food from the leftovers at a wedding party of a rich man’s house. He was terribly upset and moved by that pathetic condition of the boy. His heart was filled with love. He could not help himself from saving the life of that boy and he rescued him due to an emotional fit and brought him home.

Many children had lost their parents after floods or cyclones or some diseases when they had no money for their treatments. So the poverty stricken areas had many street urchins who survived by eating food from the dustbins or doing odd jobs at tea stalls or engaging in a rich man’s home as domestic helpers. They were sometimes ill treated and ran away from those houses to roam around with no future. Sri Balaram Karan continued picking them up and kept on rescuing some of the kids. Although he himself was from a middle class family with his three daughters,one disabled son and an old mother, yet he did not bother to think about his self motives or comforts, his sympathy, kindness and generous attitude forced him to sell his own property and shop . He begged from door to door in his village, keeping small pots in each house to fill only one fist of rice every day for his orphan children to feed, and collect it after one month.

Day by day the number of abandoned children started increasing because whenever somebody noticed in his locality or neighbouring village that any kid was being tortured or had been abandoned by relatives after the parents died they would hand them over to Sri Balaram Karan’s Ashram (orphanage).

It was very difficult for the caretaker of Antyodoy to arrange fooding, lodging, medicines and clothing for them but one thing which he observed was that there were people to help if they were informed properly on time.

He sought help from “Subrata Guha '’, a journalist at a reputed Bengali magazine ‘Anandabazar’.

He wrote an article about the miserable condition of the children at the orphanage on 14th of June 2004. The story had an immense impact on a lot of people.

Many of the readers from different places of the country and abroad who had read that story were moved by Sri Balaram Karan’s benevolent act and wanted to donate for the poor helpless kids.

Late Bimal Roy from Germany who had a German wife and had no issue of his own, also read about it in the newspaper, as he happened to be in Kolkata at that time. He asked Sri Balaram Karan to meet him personally. Sri Balaram Karan went to his Salt Lake ‘s house, stood in front of him with folded hands. Instead of greeting or welcoming him Bimal Roy raised his voice and shouted at Sri Balaram Karan ,-

"Are you a crazy fellow? Why did you keep so many children when you do not have capacity to feed them?"

Sri Balaram Karan was very surprised. ‘Why did this gentleman call me here? to insult?’’ He thought, but immediately Roy changed his tone and informed that, once he himself was also an orphan and had to struggle a lot in his life to settle, so he wished to do something for Sri Balaram Karan’s orphan kids. He donated money for the hostel building for them within a year.

In 2005 Paushi village, one of the most beautiful, peaceful and green places we had ever visited before. It was surrounded by rivers, ponds and lots of trees. The people were very simple, hardworking and friendly. They all had a very soft corner for this helpful young Sri Balaram Karan and his family. All the shopkeepers, fishermen and farmers supported him and always appreciated Sri Balaram Karan’s generous nature.

The orphanage was in a very bad shape with a few thatched roofed earthen huts, and 27 kids who were very fond of Sri Balaram Karan’s wife Chhabi and three young daughters Mayna, Chaina and Moni. They all were engaged helping the small children. Among them some were very obedient like Rani , Rita Rahul or Dipankar but few were very restless, and naughty. They were the ones who would make a lot of trouble . I had watched one boy named Saikat pulling the hair of Moyna didi because he was asked not to beat his friends. That ‘didi’ (The eldest daughter of Sri Balaram Karan) did not lose her patience and laughed, rather she embraced the little naughty boy with such fervour that nobody could imagine he was not her real brother. Balram's wife was giving bath to the small kids, a handicapped boy Hiralal whose both the legs and hands were not normal and was holding her ‘saree with shy look as if he was secured and safe in mother’s company.

Mrs. Chandana Sengupta, a school teacher, in Delhi tried teaching them morning prayer, dance and do different types of extracurricular activities, got sublimated joy, happiness and my husband helped Sri Balaram Karan to do some administrative jobs or trained his daughters, staffs how to manage an organization with the help of his skill and experience. Not only was he convinced about the genuineness of the owner of ‘Antyodoy ‘but also tried his best to help and guide Sri Balaram Karan to develop his idea. He tried motivating our other friends and relatives by saying, ‘See, how affectionately this man is keeping and feeding so many children. And we can’t even take care of any of our relative’s kids. People must come forward to stand by him’’. He drew the attention of many other people, especially the young generation who were very dedicated and sincere and tried to do something for the society.

Now 18 years have passed, since the Ashram grow into a “Banyan tree'', providing shelter and opportunity to 170+ students with a safe shelter, opportunity to study and get lots of other training as well. Amongst them there is a deaf and dumb girl named ‘Supriya’ who is an excellent artist, painter and a beautician. Some of them have amazing swimming talent and they have also helped other little brothers and sisters to learn swimming . Once four little children fell into the pond while playing near the pond and were going to drown, two fifteen year old very brave and swift children Priyanka (who is now a nurse in a Covid hospital) and Basudeb (who is a Physics honors graduate and is now a teacher, ) jumped into the water and pulled them out saving their lives.

Some children who are not good in studies, are busy farming vegetables, mushrooms for the ashram so that they don’t have to buy them from the market, rather they can provide to the other poor people in the Paushi village. Some go fishing, some children are trained to help the villagers when they face any problem such as, flood or storm or pandemic time.

Sri Balaram Karan has taught his orphanage kids to be self-sufficient, so that they can be good and responsible citizens of India in future. After eighteen years the children can not stay in the ashram so Sri Balaram Karan tries to find suitable matches for the girls who do not want to go for further studies. Like a father he arranges everything for the wedding by accepting money or kinds, from the wealthy people who love these helpless girls. I have attended some of the weddings at this ashram and was surprised to watch how responsible he was as a father.

In this ashram many generous people and groups who have always been helping in running Antyodoy smoothly by not only contributing monetary donations but also providing right advice and suggestions from time to time, or even arranging different types of training, educational workshops etc. Some doctors also provide voluntary service for the health check up of the kids and staff .

Sri Sri Balaram Karan Karan and Antyodoy Anath Ashram has received many awards and recognitions for his work from different famous people, organizations and TV channels but he does not bother for himself and he has no greed for name or fame. He is proud and happy when he watches any of his children get 100 out of 100 in maths in the Board exam, and gets any award for their talent or skill whether it is robot making, sports dance, singing or art competitions. He encourages the children to celebrate the birthdays of great men and all national festivals, distributes special gifts on their birthdays so that they feel at home in this ashram.