Chennai — They gather as dusk falls. Food packets in hand, they walk through the streets of Chennai, gently approaching the homeless people resting on the pavements. While some hesitate, wary of strangers, others gladly reach out for the food.
Across the city, small bands of citizens are getting together, cooking nutritious food in their homes and distributing it to the homeless in an effort to wipe out hunger. The initiative began a month and a half ago when Aarti Madhusudan decided to do her own bit to help the needy.
“I had stupidly assumed that food is not a problem for poor people in Chennai as all religious institutions do annadanam. Then I went for a drive with the Robin Hood Army and saw so many people sleeping hungry,” she says. “They don’t have the facilities or ability to cook. There are old people and those with leprosy.” Even if they were able to buy a small meal from a roadside stall, she felt everyone deserved a home-cooked meal. “It just needs to be something simple, but nutritious, cooked with love and care.”
So she decided to cook sambar sadam for five people, and wrote about her effort on Facebook. The response was amazing. People wrote in asking how they can help. Today, what started out as an individual effort has spread across the city with concerned citizens taking it upon themselves to form small groups in each locality, dish up a simple meal and distribute it in their area.
The idea is simple: Take a walk through your locality and see how many homeless people are there. If possible, try and engage in a conversation to see if they have eaten or not. Once you have an idea of how many people are going hungry, you can reach out to your friends and see how many are willing to cook for just two extra people. People are encouraged to make different kinds of variety rice, as they are nutritious and easy to make—and eat.
“People with leprosy cannot tear apart a chapathi,” says Bhuvana Rajaram, a marketing and communications specialist, who runs the food drive in T Nagar. Every Saturday, she and a few other people gather near the TTD temple and go through the area, distributing tamarind rice, lemon rice or curd rice, sometimes idli and sambar. “We network through a WhatsApp group,” she says.
While Besant Nagar and Thiruvanmiyur residents have chosen Fridays to run their drive, Rinku Mecheri who runs Chennai Volunteers covers Alwarpet and Mylapore on Thursdays. “People love anything to do with annadanam as you get to see instant gratification,” says Mecheri, who sometimes takes her children along for the drive.
Sneha Mohandoss, 23, a visual communication student, feels the initiative is gaining ground. “The first time, not many people came forward, but we have now done it 10 times and people are contributing,” says Ramdoss who started Food Bank Chennai, an initiative where people can share extra food. “This initiative, however, is more effective with people cooking fresh food just to feed the less privileged,” says Ramdoss, who handles Anna Nagar, Teynampet, and Nungambakkam on Thursdays and Saturdays.
More importantly, the volunteers feel that they themselves benefit from participating in the drive. “I hate cooking and have a cook at home but I personally make these meals as tasty and nutritious as possible,” says Madhusudan. “It makes me pause and think about something else and makes me a better human being.”
(This appeared in The Times of India on July 23, 2015)