I have spent every minute of my spare time restoring over 100 Hindu temples in the largest district of West Bengal, India - Midnapore.

I have had to undergo a lot of problems and hassle as it is not easy being a Muslim and gaining access to Hindu scriptures and temples. However, I have stuck to my passion undeterred.

Today, a little-known village in West Bengal called Pathra, around 100 kilometers from Calcutta, is on its way to become a tourist destination and is an example of communal harmony between the Hindus and the Muslims.

I feel proud that I have been able to orchestrate that and proud that my work bringing Hindus and Muslims together has been honoured by a presidential award.

My work began when I was around 18-years-old. I noticed derelict temples lying in ruins around me. I wanted to know how they came to exist and how they had been destroyed. I began to delve deeper into history and became wrapped up in a passion to preserve the temples that has continued with me into my fifties.

The village I live in is called Hathi Halka. We are separated from the Hindu village of Pathra by a river. Our village is inhabited mostly by Muslims. The two villages have a history of communal violence behind them.

I live in a modest, two-room home. One room I use for my work and it is like my office and the sitting area too. It is a small and dingy room with an ancient and rusty desk and a chair and a rickety wooden bed.

I work as a lowly peon (messenger/labourer) in the Chu-a-dan-ga high school in Pathra. Despite my financial hardships, I have been tirelessly restoring Hindu temples in Midnapore, the largest district in West Bengal. To date, I have managed to restore almost 100 temples, but it has been difficult.

In order to restore one temple, I needed to research the family tree of a former landlord. The present son of the family refused to let me touch the family tree script as I was a Muslim.

If I had touched the script it would have become impure and he couldn’t let that happen as they use the script for the last rites of their family members. He wouldn’t even allow me to enter the premises.

Finally I took along with me two educated people and sat at a distance of five feet away so that even my shadow won’t fall on the script and noted it down.

I had opposition from fellow Muslims too. In 1992, when the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya was demolished By Hindus, people from my community came and threatened me. They were saying that the Hindus were demolishing our mosques, while I was restoring Hindu temples.

I was beaten and threatened and eventually had to ask for police protection. I couldn’t go out of my house on my own.

But over time, I have managed to win over my detractors. They understand that because of my restoration work, Pathra is being developed.

Now they help me out with donations and advice. However, there are still some people who are trying to put obstacles in my way by not letting us do the restoration on their land. Because of that we are lagging behind. Otherwise, Pathra would have been a beautiful tourist destination by now.

There was a Durga temple which I had restored and since 1996, the Muslims of this area have been joining in celebrating the Hindu festival of Durga worship there. Most of the women who work for the festival are Muslims and the majority of the people who come to the festival are Muslims.

The greatest moment in my life came when my efforts were recognised by the government of India. I received the President’s Award for fostering communal harmony in 2005.

The only regret that I have is that in my passion to restore the temples I have neglected my family life. I restored the fortunes of many derelict temples, but my fortunes went from bad to worse.

My monthly salary is around Rs 6000. However, I took loans to marry my daughters off and now after the loan payments I have left only around Rs 2200 (around £26/$54) a month. I have a 12 member family and I am the only earning member so it is very hard.

After I received the President’s award, I was provided with a telephone line. But there was no telephone exchange in Pathra then and to provide my one telephone, the telecom department had set up a telephone exchange in Pathra. Today the same telephone line has been disconnected as I could not afford to pay the bill.

In West Midnapore, there are around 8500 old temples and 850 are designated of archaeological interest. I have researched them and written a book with proper mapping. The Archaeological Survey of India has said that it is important work, but it still took two years before they decided to publish it. Now they are publishing the book but I will not get anything from it.

I can’t carry on like this anymore. I feel sad that I couldn’t study as much as I wanted to. That is why I educated my brothers and son, but they cannot find jobs. I have taken a loan a build a home but now I think I should change my priorities and look after my family.

I have always struggled on and on and achieved success. A lot of my expectations have not been fulfilled and yet I have stuck to my passion. But nowadays I feel unhappy at the way the work is progressing in Pathra and I have not been there for the last three months. I never wanted to be rich but I wanted to survive and be respected for my work.

Yeanis Pathan told his story to Nilanjana Bhowmick, in India.