By Bethany Bray
Staff Writer

What can you get for $28? A couple bags of groceries? Half a tank of gas?

On March 30, $28 will go far. Not only will it buy a ticket to a Rogers Center performance of traditional Indian dance, it will provide school lunches for an underprivileged child in India for an entire year.

The dance performance at Merrimack College, featuring renowned classical Indian dancer Mouli Pal, will raise money for the Akshaya Patra Foundation, the largest nongovernmental school meal program in the world.

The U.S. office of the non-profit — considered so effecient that Harvard Business School is using it as a case study — is run and supported by Andover residents Madhu Sridhar and Desh and Jaishree Deshpande.

"(The dance performance) is a nice window to get a cultural view of India, and get exposed to the innovation of Akshaya Patra," said Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande. "It's a global world now. The way we lived 20 years ago, what happened in Andover was Andover and what happened in Bangalore was Bangalore. Now we live connected and everything happens all over the world."

"$28 is the cost of getting a pizza and going to a movie on a Friday night," said Sridhar, who described Mouli Pal's dancing as "absolutely fabulous."

"We are bringing this at your doorstep. How many people get to go to India and see this type of dance?"

Sridhar is president of the U.S. office of Akshaya Patra in Stoneham and the Deshpandes help fund the organization through their Deshpande Foundation; Desh Deshpande is chairman of Akshaya Patra's board of directors.

Akshaya Patra cooks and delivers fresh, healthy lunches to 820,000 public school children in India each day, many of whom would go hungry otherwise, say supporters. Since its inception in 2000, attendance at public schools in India has increased, helping break the cycle of poverty for many children.

A 2006 AC Nielsen study reported increased enrollment, better health, and improved performance among students who received Akshaya Patra school lunches — 13.8 percent for boys and 34.2 percent for girls.

India has 57 million malnourished children, said Sridhar, and for many school children, the lunch they receive from Akshaya Patra is the only complete, healthy meal they eat.

The supreme court in India recently ruled that lunch must be provided in all public schools, said Sridhar. At schools that are not part of the Akshaya Patra program, the teacher often cooks lunch for students, which often offers little nutrition.

"Providing meals and education will break these children's cycle of poverty," she said. "It will bring about peace and make them productive citizens."

Akshaya Patra meals are cooked and distributed through an innovative, organized system of 12 kitchens throughout the India. Each kitchen, designed and built by engineers, is equipped with specialized machines that prepare and cook food with very little human interaction — no chef — using gravity to combine ingredients and a steam cooking method.

The cooking process begins at 2:30 a.m. and meals are delivered to schools in specially designed vehicles the same day. Because they have a dozen kitchens, Akshaya Patra can tailor meals to different tastes and food habits in the different regions of India and also buys its vegetables, dairy products and other food from local markets.

In very rural areas, where the infrastructure won't support an Akshaya Patra kitchen, cooking is outsourced to local women trained and paid to prepare meals, said Sridhar.

"People used to go to India to see the Taj Mahal, and now they come to India to see our kitchens," said Sridhar with a laugh. Akshaya Patra's largest kitchen, in Hubli, in the Southern part of India, has an observation deck for visitors.

"We take a great deal of pride in providing quality, healthy meals," she said. "It's a great model of how we can build community and bring about change."

Sridhar has lived in Andover since 1981 and the Deshpandes moved to town in 1992. They first met when their children were attending South Elementary School together.

Deshpande and Sridhar said they hope Akshaya Patra's model can be duplicated and is the start of ending hunger not only in India, but across the world. The organization has a goal of feeding 1 million children each day by 2010.

Sridhar said they are also making plans to create U.S. chapters of Akshaya Patra, like the one in Stoneham, launched in June 2006, all over the country as well as overseas to spread awareness of the program and fundraise.

"We've just begun. We've got our work cut out for us," said Saluni P. Fadia, head of the newly formed Boston chapter of Akshaya Patra. "At the end of it, it's all about humanity. We want to give millions access to a single square meal. It's an important difference."

Mouli Pal, a Wilmington resident, is donating her time and artistry for the performance on March 30.

"She is a young woman with a big heart," said Sridhar of Pal.

The only cost incurred with the fundraiser is renting the Rogers Center, said Sridhar. Tickets are sold in increments of $28 and are tax-deductible.

"If we can come together, we can do this. We can eradicate hunger," Sridhar said of Akshaya Patra. "We are leading the way. We are affecting change. There's no stopping us."

"A Poetry of Spring in Odissi Dance"

The performance features Mouli Pal, some of her students and her 6-year old daughter. The dancers will perform a rare form of classical Indian dance called Odissi, which is based on religious sculptures, texts, art and poetry.

Guest of honor at the event will be Malcolm Rogers, director of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

Performance of classical Indian dance, featuring Mouli Pal and the Upasana trio

March 30, 4 p.m.

Rogers Center for the Arts, Merrimack College, 315 Turnpike St., North Andover

Tickets are in $28 increments, prime seats are $112

For more information about Akshaya Patra or to purchase advance tickets, visit www.foodforeducation.org or call 781-438-3090.

Akshaya Patra Foundation

The Sanskrit word Akshaya Patra means "abundant" and "inexhaustible"

The largest NGO school meal program in the world

Motto: No child deprived of education because of hunger

Started in 2000

Now feeds 820,000 school lunches daily to underprivileged children across India

Meals prepared at 12 mechanized, automated kitchens throughout the country

Akshaya Patra's kitchens meet ISO 2200 standards