Mira Kalbag

Vigyan Ashram was founded in 1983 by Dr S. S. Kalbag, a former head of the engineering sciences department at the Hindustan Lever Research Centre, who took voluntary retirement to build an education system based on what he called the 'natural system of learning'. Pabal at the time had neither telephones nor reliable transport. While Dr Kalbag travelled frequently for the ashram's work, Mira Kalbag stayed at Pabal.

She began a tailoring and stitching class for girls from Pabal and neighbouring villages, and trained more than 600 girls between 1984 and 2000, placing emphasis on their wider personal development alongside the practical skill. She stopped teaching the classes after 2000 because of her age but continued to counsel students, workers and village women.

She also managed the ashram kitchen, standardising quantities and recipes, recording each resident's expected consumption at the start of the month so that only the required amount of food was cooked, and directing waste water and food scraps to a vermicompost pit. Pupils' weight and haemoglobin counts were recorded on admission and checked every three months. A practitioner of Vipassana meditation, she led a daily period of meditation followed by group discussion, which was used as an informal means of teaching ethics.

After her husband's death in 2003 she continued to live at the ashram, delegating day-to-day management to younger workers. As she had wished, her body was donated for medical education.[2][3]