CORTLANDT — The pristine home overlooking an expanse of snow-covered oaks, maples and hemlocks is a world away from the sun-baked mud huts in western India's Thar desert. But one man's faith in the singularity of all beings and their destinies is connecting a remote Indian village and the people of affluent Westchester.

Don Plunkett, 44, of Cortlandt was planning a business trip to India last year when he received a newspaper clipping in the mail from his mother. The February 2004 article from The Journal News profiled Pace University professor Surendra Kaushik of Briarcliff Manor, who founded a college for women in Malsisar, his ancestral village in the Thar. Women in the region did not finish school and became wives and mothers in their teens. But the opening of the college had changed local society, with girls' high schools opening to fill the college and young women traveling from nearby villages to study there.

"She said, 'You talk about equality between men and women all the time. Here is a man who is practicing what you preach,' " Plunkett said of his mother's letter. Plunkett, a businessman and an adjunct professor of graduate business at the City University of New York, is a member of the 6 million-strong Bahai religion, which emphasizes equality between men and women as an essential tenet of its faith, and the importance of education.

Plunkett family ripple effect Don and Magaly Plunkett of Cortlandt have inspired a series of efforts to help Mrs. Helena Kaushik College in Malsisar, India, and younger students in rural India, including • The Mariah Plunkett Arts Scholarship. • The Kayla Plunkett Science Scholarship. • The Tahirih Empowerment of Women Lecture Series. • The Peekskill Rotary Club Scholarship, the Senior Summer Tennis Association of Westchester scholarship and five other scholarships. • A pen-pal program between Irvington students and elementary school students in Malsisar. • Three thousand textbooks donated by the estate of Leo Soricelli Jr. of Peekskill. • Books donated by the estate of professor Bud Dwyer of Pace University. • Book drives by Babson College and Bentley College in Massachusetts and by Pace University in White Plains and New York City.

In the year since Plunkett made contact with Kaushik, he has visited India twice, once with his older daughter, Mariah, then 11. He also has initiated a series of connections between Westchester residents and schools and college students in Malsisar. These include several college scholarships for women, a pen-pal program involving Main Street School in Irvington, book donation programs and an annual visiting lecture at the Mrs. Helena Kaushik College in Malsisar, which has 260 students and is named after Kaushik's wife.

"Our lives have forever been changed," Plunkett said. "I have always emphasized gender equality to my daughters. But teachings go only so far. Without volition and action, they are mere words."

Twenty years ago, Plunkett, a Roman Catholic, was introduced to the teachings of Baha'ullah, who founded Bahaism in 19th-century Persia. Plunkett was inspired by Bahaism's call for a new, united world order and the equality of men and women. In 1986, Plunkett converted to Bahaism, an offshoot of Islam, and has attempted to live his life according to its teachings and pass them on to his daughters.

Plunkett was moved by Kaushik's effort and decided to make a side trip to Malsisar during his visit to India. It wasn't going to be easy, Kaushik warned him; the village is a bumpy, 12-hour road trip away from New Delhi, India's capital, with cattle, rickshaws and speeding trucks sharing a single-lane highway. As it was Mariah's spring break from school, Plunkett encouraged her to accompany him.

"I wanted to show her it's one world, that life is not only America," Plunkett said.

As the dusty Indian countryside sped by, Plunkett and Mariah watched slender women in colorful saris carrying water pots on their heads. In the Mrs. Helena Kaushik College, they met young women, in their late teens and early 20s, studying to be teachers, doctors and businesswomen, earnest about learning and appreciative of the opportunity being given to them. In the two days there, Plunkett said, they understood the value of Kaushik's work and how much more needed to be done.

"I was amazed that the children walked so many miles to school through the hot desert," said Mariah, now 12, sitting in her living room last month. "There is no way I could be able to do that. It really shows how much they want to improve their lives."

She later went to the nearby elementary school in Malsisar where she and the students talked about their experiences, their hobbies and their hopes for the future.

When she returned home, Mariah said, she wanted to contribute to the education of the young women she had met. She started what now is known as the Mariah Plunkett Arts Scholarship. Mariah saves her allowance and money earned from chores around the house to fund the living expenses of one college student for a year — $600. Tuition at the college is free and is funded by donations from Americans and some Indians. A few months later, Kayla, Mariah's sister, then 9, decided to do the same, establishing the Kayla Plunkett Science Scholarship.

Inspired by his daughters, Plunkett began the Tahirih Empowerment of Women Lecture Series, which he delivers each Thanksgiving week at the college. Tahirih, a 19th-century Persian woman believed to be among the first martyrs in the cause of women's emancipation, outraged conservatives of her era by publicly removing her veil, an act for which she was executed by suffocation. As her own veil was being forced deep into her throat, she is believed to have said, "You can kill me if you like, but you cannot stop the emancipation of women."

The Plunketts' initiative created a ripple effect in their community. Four more scholarships for college education have been started by Westchester residents. The Rotary Club of Peekskill, of which Plunkett is a member, also has started an annual scholarship. The estate of Leo Soricelli Jr. of Peekskill donated 3,000 books, and several book drives are currently going on for the Malsisar college.

"Don is doing a tremendous amount of the work for the college," Surendra Kaushik said. "He sees an opportunity being created for rural girls, and he wants to be a part of that. He is taking the American idea of community service there."

Magaly, Plunkett's wife, a fifth-grade teacher in Irvington, has encouraged her students to start a pen-pal program with elementary school children in Malsisar. The two groups exchange letters in their native languages and have translators read them. Magaly Plunkett believes that only by learning of the hopes and aspirations of children on the other side of the world will her students understand that the world is united.

It is in this spirit that Plunkett hopes to foster Kaushik's vision in Malsisar.

"I can help the girl students realize their own dreams in my own little way, and hope that others are moved to help them," Plunkett said. "There are many fathers in the world without the means to help their own daughters that many of us dads in Westchester County have."