A facile and efficient one-pot synthesis of pyrrolidines and dispiro pyrrolidines/pyrrolizidines has been accomplished by the 1,3-dipolar cycloaddtion reaction of azomethine ylides generated insitu from paraformaldehyde/ninhydrin and secondary amino acids with electron-deficient dipolarophiles in good yield. The reaction proceeded with high regio and stereoselectivity. The products have been characterized by elemental analyses and spectroscopic techniques, namely IR, 1H NMR and 13C NMR spectroscopies as well as mass spectrometry.