SALEM: Past noon when the day’s heat is unbearable, one young man in formals reaches out for the hands of someone lying fully covered with a tattered blanket on the pavement opposite Salem GH. He carefully feeds the old destitute woman who cannot even sit up.
T Periyasamy and his friends have been doing this without missing a single day for nearly six years. Wednesday was the 292nd week of feeding destitute on roads. What began as a rare human compassion has now become an obsession for Periyasamy and 30 volunteers of “Amudhasurabi” project.
The project offers full meals with water packets every afternoon to 100 persons in Salem City and to 500 persons on Sundays for destitute in the city and rural areas. Periyasamy runs an electrical shop near the old bus stand while the volunteers are from various walks of life. But none, including Periyasamy, is well off financially but seem to have a rare resolve to help the most helpless.
Thirty per cent of the cost is supported by non-volunteers while the rest is pooled by the volunteers. They have set up a dedicated kitchen at Seelanaickenpatti. A paid cook prepares the food every Sunday. The volunteers gather at the kitchen on Sunday at 5.30 am and share the work like cleaning, vegetable cutting and food packing.
At 11.30 am they leave to give the food to the hungry. On week days food is out-sourced for cash from a reliable source. “We ensure that the lunch reaches the people by 1.30 pm every day. We have not missed even a day till date since we started. Most of whom we serve have been deserted by family. We look for people who can’t even take a step to receive the lunch packet.
In many cases they cannot even eat on their own and volunteers have to feed them literally, not just give the food packet and move on to the next.”
“Water packets were added to the lunch offer when one day I saw an old woman who gets food regularly from us crawled up to the nearby drainage to wash hands and shockingly she also drank the drain water,” he says.
Recounting the journey, Periyasamy said that initially he visited old age and destitute homes run by NGOs and charitable trusts to offer some help. But he found that help was never scarce for such institutions. But those are on the roads sides and pavements had none to help.
“First I started giving idlis to 20 persons. But I found many were keeping it for more than a day till it rot. Later I tried giving lime and tomato rice which too ended same way. We brain stormed and came with the idea of providing full meal lunch. This was well received and we saw people eating it instantly. Soon we noticed people waiting anxiously for us to come. That really motivated me to take the full plunge.”