“If people don’t get food, they will die,” said Santosh Kumar who lives in Pisavali, a low-income settlement in Dombivali. “Therefore we de...
“If people don’t get food, they will die,” said Santosh Kumar who lives in Pisavali, a low-income settlement in Dombivali. “Therefore we decided as a collective to pool in our resources and set up a community kitchen to feed the poor and helpless persons in our midst.”
Kumar, an autorickshaw driver, was stirred to action a fortnight into the lockdown to contain the speak of the coronavirus when he realised that the migrant workers who lived in his settlement were venturing out every day in search of food despite the restrictions on movement. The complete shutdown of the city had left them without work, income or food. Even as these workers braved police batons, humiliation and the possibility of contracting the disease, they often returned home hungry.
So in mid-April, Kumar and his neighbours got together to persuade a local real-estate developer to open up a vacant room in one of his buildings in their neighbourhood to start the community kitchen. Around 20 volunteers from the settlement joined in to help run it. They were expecting to feed around a hundred but as word spread, they began cater to double that number every day.
Similar initiatives sprung up in low-income settlements throughout the Mumbai Metropolitan Region...
