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Francis Laleman

got all the way the Indian way, when as a teenager he came across Robert Van Gulik's translation of the ancient Indian story of Urvashi and Pururavas.

As a university student in the late seventies, he read classical Sanskrit with the Kalidasa specialist Professor Adriaan Scharpe, post-classical Sanskrit and Apabhramsa with Professor Jozef Deleu, and BHS (Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit), Tokharian and Pali with Buddhologist Professor Walter Couvreur. Specialising in historical Buddhism, he went on to study the Suttanipata and other Pali dhamma texts, a/o with Rev. Obbegoda Dhammatilaka Nayaka Thera in Buduruvagala (Sri Lanka). From there he travelled north to research a series of Buddhist archaeological sites in Nepal and Northern India, and made a solo walk of 2,500 km through Nepal, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, following the footsteps of the historical Buddha - all the while reporting on the Belgian Radio, and later describing his adventures in a book (Whoever Turns the Wheel, 1992).

In the early nineties, he was a Lecturer at the India Study Center (University of Antwerp) and a Research Fellow at Leuven University, where his attention gradually shifted to Islamic Studies while researching a descriptive bibliography of Allama Muhammad Iqbal (with the Iqbal Foundation Europe and the Ministry of Education, Government of Pakistan).

In the meantime, Francis has toured India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangla Desh and Sri Lanka with hundreds of clients, sharing his encyclopeadic inside knowledge and his truly amazing treasury of stories and anecdotes with travellers and India aficionados alike - while, between sojourns in India, giving lectures worldwide, on scholarly subjects, developmental issues and doing business in India. 

Today, he spends about half of each year in India and its neighbouring countries, dividing his attention between doing business (sourcing, outsourcing, offshoring, intercultural management), studying and writing, enjoying the culture scene and devoting time and energy to social projects aiming at the development of the Dalit and Scheduled Castes communities in Bihar.

Francis is the vice-president of Anand vzw, a founding partner at Dunya, and founder and chairman of India Business Support and Lanka Business Support.