FEEDING THE HUNGRY – A JOY & A PRIVILEGE!!

Mahatma Gandhi once said “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” 

A simple truth of life is that it always looks better on a full stomach.. right? YES - for us who are fortunate and blessed to have an abundance of food on the table.. however, everyone is not as lucky! When scruffy little children with endearing smiles (or unkempt and desperate adults with anguished eyes) come up to us at traffic signals or in the middle of Bhaji Galli with outstretched hands saying they haven’t had anything to eat all day (or for a few days) we hand over some money or food OR ignore them as we see fit.. but.. there are others..

There are a number of people who can NOT walk the streets and beg for food or money.. simply because they were once upon a time the backbone of our beloved city Mumbai.. and have fallen on the hardest times ever thanks to the pandemic.. It is the epitome of irony that the people who have ensured that our entire city was “fed” should now be suffering hunger pangs almost constantly! This is a cruel injustice and shockingly, the government is doing absolutely NOTHING to help them..

It was distressing to read a newspaper article about their plight and made me feel that I MUST do something about it! It’s also the time of year when I start thinking of my birthday project (which deserving cause to help) and hence I adopted this forthwith.. it’s been a crazy number of telephone calls and chats but finally it is organized.. Ritesh (who is the head of the Dabbawallah’s Association is a young man of 25, qualified as an MBA and who is coordinating relief supplies for them) and I have connected with each other and spoken at length and it has been decided that we (my friends and I) will provide rations to 800 dabbawallahs who live on the Western Railway line..

The “relief staples goody bag” contains all this and is priced at Rs.1500..

·       5 kgs rice

·       5 kgs wholewheat flour

·       2 kgs tuver dal

·       2 pouches Sunday oil

·       1 kg Tata Agni tea

·       3 kgs sugar

·       1 kg Tata salt

·       100 gms haldi powder

·       100 gma dhania powder

·       100 gms red chilly powder

Needless to say, this would have been impossible without the tremendous support of my friend Tinubhai who owns and manages the wonderful Welcome Supermarket in Bhaji Galli, Grant Road (West).. He has coordinated with wholesale dealers in Navi Mumbai.. negotiated the best prices possible.. and is coordinating EVERYTHING.. delivery from Navi Mumbai.. sending the smaller goods from his shop to the godown in Dadar.. sending his boys to do the assembly line packing of each jumbo bag.. AND sending them to help with distribution as well! A very big THANK YOU (in advance) for all the help received!

Another big thank you goes out to my friends Sangeeta and Uday who have made a generous donation towards this worthy cause as well.. and of course my dear friend Kavita who couldn’t take the Rs.1500 out of her wallet fast enough as soon as she heard about the project!

As everyone knows, I have stopped ALL gifting and this is one of my pet projects, so if you would like to reach out and help the dabbawallahs, it will be a special and meaningful “birthday gift” to me! My accountant Rajesh has said strictly no bank transfers to be made so you can send me the cash or pledge it now and give it to me whenever we meet next! This is the biggest donation I have ever committed to (Rs.12,00,000 of which Sangeeta and Uday have given Rs.50,000) so anything else that comes in will be very welcome!

A number of you who read my blog always tell me it brings you tremendous joy.. and now this is an opportunity to bring a little joy to the people who really need it!

P.S. Do post your names along with your comments.. it’s lovely to read them!!