From the small pond within the premises of his home in Ambalamedu, Kerala, Basil nets around 20 fish, retains a few for his family, and distributes the rest to his neighbours. The next morning, his mother Leela Varghese starts the day a bit early like her neighbours, boils a few extra cups of rice, fries the fish, prepares omelettes, pappadum, and sambar for lunch for her family. She then rushes out to collect a few banana leaves to wrap the extra food as pothichoru (food parcels) before members of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) come to collect the food by around 9 a.m.
What started off in Thiruvananthapuram six years ago with 200 food parcels has now expanded to more than 45,000 pothichoru per day primarily for patients and bystanders at government hospitals in Kerala, says DYFI State secretary V.K. Sanoj. “We have delivered around 6.5 crore food parcels in total,” he adds.
