Bringing together Irular community through a meal

Here, Shifu along with like-minded individuals will cook meals for 50 members from Irular (a tribal community) community living at Pattipulam near Mahabalipuram.

“Usually, they don’t mingle or interact with others because of various reasons. I wanted to encourage them to be friendly with others. So, when this idea popped into my mind, I thought the best way to create a rapport would be by cooking a meal together. That’s how I decided to host an event called Kootanchoru on January 5 at Mahabalipuram. Kootanchoru means cooking meals together with native groceries and utensils brought by a group of people, cooked at a place, and shared among them,” says Shifu.

During awareness programmes that have the participation of Irular communities, people from the city just partake and leave. There is no camaraderie or knowledge sharing. “This is more like a get together where we aim to break that taboo. By spending time with the tribal people by cooking food, dining and interacting, we get to know more about them. We are also inviting trainers from Core Power Kungfu Academy to teach martial arts to the children. Nagendra Prasad, younger brother of filmmaker Prabhudheva, has also promised to teach dance to them,” he remarks.