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Feeding the hungry during this lockdown has given me food for thought: Sumit S. Rao

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If you want to eliminate hunger, everybody has to be involved.” Bono


Mangaluru: It all started with the lockdown 14 days ago. I was sitting at home with my wife Vidya and discussing what do we do at home? Good question don’t you think? She said that since you like to be busy why don’t you think of the thousands of people who are daily wage earners, laborers, stranded workers from North India, etc and try to feed them. That too is a good idea I thought. But I had a doubt. Who will fund a project like that, I asked her.

Don’t ever underestimate the women in your house. They have an answer for every question you throw at them. She said, “don’t procrastinate; just start with a small corpus and then approach the District administration and find out how you can help them in serving the people”. Excellent, prompt and timely advice!

I immediately talked to the District Administration and they welcomed my initiative and supported me to the hilt!. They gave me two car passes and designated about 5 areas in Ganeshpeti (Near MRPL) Baikampady industrial estate, Akash Bhavan, a colony behind income tax office Attavar and a few people in Yeyyadi. Around 300 in all.

So areas and facilities allotted, the next challenge was food preparation and packaging. Luckily for me, I have a tenant who is running a small street shop preparing morning breakfast, etc who is homebound because of the lockdown. He had the talent and time. He readily agreed to prepare the food. It also helped him make ends meet – He too could now work from home.

Keeping in mind, the purpose of the exercise, he also agreed to provide the food (rice, rasam and sometimes vegetables) at a very reasonable price and individually packed.

That taken care of, I had now to find a way of handling the distribution. What are friends for? A friend in need is a friend indeed. I asked a few friends and Shailendra Pai Prashanth Rai and Canute Pinto readily agreed to help me.

I was doing my bit. But I wanted to inspire people to do it too – There is a saying too many cooks spoil the broth; but not in this case. In this case, many hands make work light. And so… I posted pictures of our work on Social Media especially my WhatsApp groups. And Oh! what an overwhelming response. Here’s a short video of our work. More pics are appended below the article.

Friends, Cousins, long-standing Classmates all came forward to help any which way. I am grateful to them. But I am sure that those whose thirst was quenched or whose hunger was satiated were more than that. For some, I found to my dismay, it was an unexpected lifeline. 

My wife had the last word when she said, “God will find a way to help accomplish any good deed”. Now with the help of good samaritans around our city and more offering to join in every day, we will be able to give one meal a day to these 300 people every day till the end of the lockdown as projected to be 14h of April. 

Its quite possible the lockdown can be extended. But a helping hand is never empty. That’s a truth I have learned from this exercise. My friends and family have promised to be there for me, should that happen.

It started as a small project and has bloomed into a full-service project. Just as my wife said it would. It gives both of us so much of happiness that we can help someone in need, instead of feeling helpless and twiddling our thumbs.

Along the way, we have met scores of people with different stories to tell of their plight. Some scary, some poignant, some downright tearful. One of them has refused to leave me: We met an old couple hailing from and bound for Tiruchirapalli who found themselves stranded because of the cancellation of train services. We found this couple below the extended roof of a ship in front of Hotel Amanthran and when we offered them food, there was a twinkle in the of the couple that I have not found in any star up in the sky.

What more reward can one ask for? 

All I ask of fellowmen is to come out join the many of us – I know of Jackie Maben’s Basil Cafe in Manipal, Hotel Devi Prasad in Kaikamba, White Doves an NGO in Mangalore, MI Friends, and I am sure, many others – in helping the District Administration manage the difficult situation caused by this necessary lockdown. As Mother Teresa once said, “If you can’t feed a hundred, then feed just one”

The situation is unprecedented. The response has to be unprecedented. If we do what we always did, we would end up with the results we always had.

Sumith S Rao

Ps: Sumit Rao is an active and eminent Rotarian, Aloysian and World Citizen. He runs a refrigeration company at Yeyyadi. 

Feeding the hungry during this lockdown has given me food for thought: Sumit S. Rao
Feeding the hungry during this lockdown has given me food for thought: Sumit S. Rao
Feeding the hungry during this lockdown has given me food for thought: Sumit S. Rao
Feeding the hungry during this lockdown has given me food for thought: Sumit S. Rao
Feeding the hungry during this lockdown has given me food for thought: Sumit S. Rao
Feeding the hungry during this lockdown has given me food for thought: Sumit S. Rao
Feeding the hungry during this lockdown has given me food for thought: Sumit S. Rao
Feeding the hungry during this lockdown has given me food for thought: Sumit S. Rao
Feeding the hungry during this lockdown has given me food for thought: Sumit S. Rao
Feeding the hungry during this lockdown has given me food for thought: Sumit S. Rao
Feeding the hungry during this lockdown has given me food for thought: Sumit S. Rao
Feeding the hungry during this lockdown has given me food for thought: Sumit S. Rao
Feeding the hungry during this lockdown has given me food for thought: Sumit S. Rao
Feeding the hungry during this lockdown has given me food for thought: Sumit S. Rao
Feeding the hungry during this lockdown has given me food for thought: Sumit S. Rao
Feeding the hungry during this lockdown has given me food for thought: Sumit S. Rao
Feeding the hungry during this lockdown has given me food for thought: Sumit S. Rao
Feeding the hungry during this lockdown has given me food for thought: Sumit S. Rao
Feeding the hungry during this lockdown has given me food for thought: Sumit S. Rao
Feeding the hungry during this lockdown has given me food for thought: Sumit S. Rao
Feeding the hungry during this lockdown has given me food for thought: Sumit S. Rao

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