“Kollamo (is it good)?” asks Sujatha (name changed) as I clean up the soft idlis, tangy sambar and chutney on my plate. We are at the food unit-cum-kitchen of the Women’s Prison and Correctional Home at Attakkulangara in Thiruvananthapuram. “The chutney has sautéed tomato, onion and chillies,” Sujatha adds, as another inmate passes a plate of banana chips, hot off the stove. They are among the four prisoners working at the unit.
Prisons and correctional homes across the state have been selling food products prepared by the inmates under the brand, Food for Freedom. The women’s prison, which opened at Neyyattinkara in the district in 1990 was shifted to the present location in September 2011.
The current building was once the stables of the erstwhile Travancore rulers in the mid-19th century. The age-old structure, with 46 inmates at present, stands on one acre and nine cents.
