Raghunatha's shocking essay 'Children of the Ashram' broke the silenceon gurukula abuse, bringing out information that had been kept well-hiddenfor years. Raghunatha wrote it in response to a letter he receivedfrom a friend. He explains, 'What started out to be a couple paragraphsended up growing into almost a hundred handwritten pages. However, in doingthis write-up, I have put together the greatest first-hand insight to some--onlysome--of the poor treatment many of the students have had to undergo inmany of the gurukulas. There are a couple places where I get a little dramatic,but for the most part, I simply state everything in the third person andin passing. Yet, this has proven to be a horrifying narration.'

After publishing this story, Raghunatha commented in his newsletter:'Virabahu prabhu [a GBC representative] has circulated this [essay] around to theGBC, which produced a muted response from most and grumblings about theessay and me from the rest. Hardly but a couple showed any personal concernwhich personified to me why all this happened in the first place. Hopefully,this will produce a sense of urgency in some of our readers for more suchconcern.'