India, Feb. 11 -- Fondly addressed as "Marang Pandit" (which means a great scholar in Santhali), Amitava Misra is not just the head teacher of a remote primary school in West Bengal's Gobindpur village, but today, he is also the "guardian" to thousands of villagers in the region.

Back in April 2006, when then 35-year-old Misra took charge of the school in this tribal village of Purulia district, all he started with were two dilapidated mud-built rooms. A large banyan tree nearby served as the "classroom" under which a handful of children occasionally came to sit. The village lacked electricity and access to drinking water. Without an approach road to the village, a few spells of rain were enough to isolate it from its surroundings.

"But...