Chennai man steps up, feeds over 500

“Usually we get around 300 patients and their relatives every afternoon coming for food or even gruel for the patients. Due to lockdown, the numbers doubled but we were prepared with enough food to serve all of them,” says Rajeev who lives with his wife and two children near Egmore.

Most patients and their kin visiting the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital cannot miss the tea shop-cum-hotel where they stop by for a cuppa or a snack before heading home. Rajeev began his business 10 years ago and since then, he has been witnessing patients’ relatives running around for rice gruel for patients. “You can buy tiffin or meals but it is so hard to get gruel, which patients need during recovery. Unable to bear their plight, I began distributing gruel for free seven years ago,” Rajeev told DT Next.

Since then, a small circle of well-wishers joined him and together they managed to provide gruel or meals and even a sweet, every once in a while, to patients thronging the hospital.