Akshaya Patra means inexhaustible vessel in Sanskrit. In Mahabharata, it was a wonderful vessel given to Yudhishthira by the Lord Surya, that held a never-ending supply of food. Vinoba bhave, during the Bhoodan movement, re-introduced this concept to invite people to collect a fist-full of food grain, which could later be redistributed to the neediest people in the neighborhood. He emphasized that only one fist full should be give, and that too through the hands of the children, so as to inculcate the value of sharing with the community. Millions of households adopted the practice all over India. Power of small couldn't have been expressed better.

Taking it further, another small yet beautiful effort is started by Jyotsna Parmar, a 23 year old, compassionate warrior who lives in Ram-pir-na-tekra , Ahmedabad’s biggest slum. She is a primary school teacher, social worker and a filmmaker. Apart from teaching filmmaking to the kids in slums she also organizes, various film screenings in the local community to create awareness on social causes.

Her recent project, ‘Akshay Patra’ is to inspire people to collect one rupee daily (not more) in a piggy bank made of reused plastic water bottles and further use it to help and support every day heroes who are doing random acts of kindness. Some one asked her ” what if i give you Rs 365 all at once instead of saving it every day for a year?” to which she simply replies ” imagine this empty bottle to be like your mind, every day when you will put one rupee in it knowing it will do good, you will be sending out a compassionate and gratitude thought to your mind and slowly your heart and mind will be filled with love.”

The bottles are hand painted by street children, you can Earn-nLearn street children and are also distributed through Seva Cafe in Ahmedabad.

Emptying yourself one coin at a time : )

Contact: Jyotsna Parma, 09824971962, jyotsana.josu@gmail.com

One Recent Experience

Today the kids were injected with a wonderful opportunity, Akshay Patra.

Madhuji and Jyoshnadidi sat down with the kids and explained the experiment.

For months now, a group of separate kids have been collecting 1 rupee a day in an Akshay Patra bottle provided to them by our Moved by Love family. 


They are empty water bottles renovated by our Earn n’ Learn kids, through paint and color, transformed into beautiful piggy banks. The savings that go into these Akshay Patra bottles, eventually become mini-bank accounts to do good. But the children that are saving this money are taught about Sudh-bauvna before the saving process begins. Meaning, the good thoughts, pure thoughts, loving thoughts and feelings that are carried and transferred through that process of putting little amounts of money every day into the bottle, with the pure desire to do good for others. After prayer Jyoshnadidi explained this and then Madhuji shared the bag of collected Sudh-Bhauvna, do-good money, with all the kids.  The bag weighed at least 12kg. 12 kg of Sudh-Bauvna money to do good! Wow! The kids kept their eyes closed and felt the weight of the bag of love and passed it on. 


Then we discussed with our kids that we would give them 30 rupees each and they have to do something good, full of Sudh Bhauvna, for someone over the weekend and share their story of giving during our circle of sharing on Monday….