---
title: Giving Back Money
date: "2025-08-09T03:08:58Z"
lastmod: "2025-08-09T03:09:00Z"
categories:
  - how-i-do-things
wp_id: 4166
description: "The author reframes his first meaningful donations not as abstract charity but as gratitude payments toward knowledge, peace, and code."
keywords: ["donation", "gratitude", "giving", "wealth", "open source", "Vipassana"]
---

![Giving Back Money](/blog/assets/anand-donating.webp)

At the end of my 2021 graduation interview, All India Radio asked:

> **Interviewer**: What would, if you are asked to give back something to the country, what would be that?
>
> **Anand**: I really don't know. At this stage, I don't know what I'm capable of and what I can contribute, but whatever it will be, I suspect the bulk of it will come later towards my career.

25 years later, I think I've given back three things.

1. [Knowledge](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHCH16htawZbR_-mIqfGmYbhE5S2UckOh)
2. Peace (so I'm told)
3. [Code](https://github.com/sanand0/)

Money is **not** one of them.

I'm stingy and unemotional. At 14, a beggar clutched me for five minutes asking for money. I didn't move. I haven't changed.

But after the Gramener acquisition, I have more money.

Last month, I gave money for the first time. I want to make it a habit.

1. Rs 5 lakhs to [Sanskrit College](https://ksri.in/). My mother would have wanted it.
2. Rs 1 lakh to [Vipassana](https://www.dhamma.org/). I liked their approach.
3. Rs 1 lakh annually to [Isaac Schlueter](https://github.com/isaacs) and [Sindre Sorhus](https://github.com/sindresorhus) for the code they've written.

These gifts (accidentally) matched my theme: knowledge, peace, and code!

I see two kinds of contribution:

- **Funding** - you encourage something.
- **Thanking** - you repay a debt.

Mine were all thanks, not funding. I hope to learn the other kind too.