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Indra Bohara and his wife, Salina, are putting more than three children through school - and they don't want your help.
Not that the Sunnyside, Queens couple are people of means - Bohara drives a cab, and Salina works for a food service company at Kennedy Airport.
Yet the couple, natives of Nepal, in the Himalaya mountains of South Asia, somehow manage to squeeze $400 a month out of their budget to send to two schools in their home village of Kabilas (pronounced Cob-be-las), where it is used to send 41 children between 8 and 14 years old to two semiprivate schools from kindergarten through fourth grade.
Last month they sent $800 to properly outfit the children for the 16-day Dashain Festival, when they receive blessings from village elders.
All of the children come from families of the "untouchable" caste, the lowest rung in the country's rigid social caste system.
Bohara is hoping to do more.
He and several cousins - Krishna Bohara, Shiva Bohara and Sanjay Bohara, and friends Yogesh Gautam in Denmark, Dipendra Thapa in the Netherlands, and Navin Maharjan and Nabin Shrestha in Australia - are hoping to broaden the program to sponsor underprivileged children across Nepal.
"Several of my friends here already give us money to help," Bohara said. "Friends in Louisville, Kentucky, Denmark and the Netherlands want to make is a national program across Nepal."
Bohara hit on the idea of sponsoring a school while watching children enjoying New York City parks, schools and playgrounds as he drove his cab around town.
"Children here have so much, so much," he said. "The schools are free. There are parks to play in. In my village, there was none of that. Children deserve those things."
Bohara's family lived comfortably in Kabilas, with his mother, AnantaKumari; father, Lekh Prasad; and two brothers, Puru and Dipak. His father had a rice distributing business before retiring several years ago; he still lives in Kabilas and helps buy and distribute the soap, uniforms and school supplies given to each child who receives his son's largesse.
After graduating from the local equivalent of high school in 2002, Bohara worked in his father's business for several years while trying to chart his future. Following Nepalese custom, his oldest brother, Puru, decided Bohara's future profession - he wanted Bohara to be a doctor or lawyer.
But growing political unrest as factions fought to depose the monarchy - Nepal became a republic in 2005 - made job prospects iffy at best.
He met Salina in high school and they married in 2004. In 2007 the couple joined hundreds of Nepalese and immigrated to Sydney, Australia, where Bohara enrolled in a college to take hospitality classes.
"I said hospitality classes because that was what you had to say to get in the country," Bohara said. "I was not really interested in working in hospitality. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life."
A year later Salina won a spot in the 2008 U.S. Diversity Visa Lottery and the couple left Sydney to join Bohara's brother Puru in Louisville, Ky.
The cultural adjustments of moving from mountainous and rural Kabilas to cosmopolitan Sydney, Australia, had been difficult, Bohara said, but by the time the couple got to the U.S. they found life in Louisville way too slow.
Seven months after landing they were headed to New York City, being persuaded to come here rather than go to Los Angeles by friends already living here who insisted that Bohara could easily get work driving a cab.
Bohara immediately enrolled in the 80-day Taxi and FHV Institute program at LaGuardia Community College. He passed - and enrolled in LaGuardia full time, driving at night.
It was a LaGuardia philosophy class that crystalized the idea of sponsoring schoolchildren in his mind.
"He [the instructor] asked the class if we have a responsibility to people who are less fortunate," Bohara said. "I said of course we have a responsibility to those who have less than we do."
In July Bohara earned an associates degree in liberal arts and sciences from LaGuardia. He is now enrolled in the CUNY Graduate Center, where he is working toward a B.A. in non-profit management and economics.
Now Bohara drives on the weekend and goes to school full-time. He and Salina continue to put aside whatever money they can save after paying rent and expenses, to send to the school.
They have no website and are not soliciting any contributions until he and his friends can get a system in place to be sure the money is used properly.
"We do this for the children, to make a real difference in peoples' lives," Bohara said.
crichardson@nydailynews.com
