Eleven of them feed the hungry

Tara was the wayward boy of the locality in Lalmatia Block D. If he wasn’t playing cricket or hanging out with his friends, he was arguing, fighting or getting into some trouble or the other. But that was in the past. Things have changed and so has Tara’s daily routine. He now is busy, cooking everyday for the helpless hungry people during the pandemic.

He is not the only one. There are 11 of them, including theatre activist Lisa, Asma and Akhter.

Lisa had begun by distributing hand sanitisers and masks for free. Then she began distributing dry food. Now during Ramadan, she makes iftar and distributes it among the needy. The neighbours have joined in to help. On the first day they arranged iftar for 100 people. Yesterday, Sunday, they had over 600 people for iftar.

It was Saturday and Lisa was sitting in a two-storey house in Lalmatia with three others, preparing food. It was raining hard outside.

Speaking to Prothom Alo, Lisa said that her father-in-law had cancer and they had to sell their land for his treatment. They had some surplus money from there after his treatment was over and decided to use that to stand by the distressed hungry people in this time of crisis.

Who else are with Lisa in this venture? Lisa introduced the others.

The house was like a small relief camp for the pandemic. There was muri (puffed rice), rice, dal (lentils) and chick peas stacked around the room in sacks. In the corridor there were chillies. There were cucumbers on the dining table, onions in the veranda. They had bought all this in bulk.

The house belonged to an expatriate Bangladeshi. Lisa and other were tenants. The owner of the house had given permission to volunteers to stay there too.

Lisa’s husband Ahmed Akhter, who works for a readymade garment factory, was helping her make the iftar on Sunday.

Visually challenged Asma, who can see with only one eye, was swiftly and skillfully sorting the chillies with the single arm, that too weak.

Asma said that around three years ago her gambling husband had held her over the stove when she had been cooking. She was treated at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital burn unit. Lisa sometimes volunteers there and that is when she met Asma and they became close.

Jesmin used to work for a cotton mill. He husband also was a gambler and a drunkard. He sold their infant child. She later recovered the baby and left him. She now lives with Lisa.

Also with this team of volunteers is Motahar who runs a grocery opposite the house. He provides good groceries at a cheap price and helps in distributing the iftar. Director of ‘A Letter to God’, Hemanta Sadik, is also volunteer of this team.

Speaking to Prothom Alo, another volunteer, development worker Syed Saiful Alam, said many people were gradually joining them in this initiative. He pointed to a bicycle in front of the house and said, “That belongs to an egg seller. He sells eggs the whole day and comes here at the day’s end to distribute iftar. Today there is no gas supply in this house so the chick peas are being cooked in a neighbour’s house. Another house is giving us water. In fact many neighbours are providing us with drinking water to make sherbet.”

Who are being given this food? There are many security guards on the list. Now many housemaids who are out of work have also been included among the recipients.

Lisa’s team of 11 works tirelessly. As the rain let up a bit on Saturday afternoon, Tara appeared on the scene. He began preparing to cook in the yard. He told Prothom Alo that he wanted to continue with the cooking duty for as long as the crisis remained.

But for how long? Lisa said that the number of hungry people were increasing by the day. She did not know how many they would eventually be able to feed.