It’s tough to find better words than Trilok Babu’s to capture spirit of good samaritans working to ease the pain of life under lockdown: “We have to help each other out.”

This owner of a Chennai eatery, Dosa Corner, is having free packets of food — rice, sambhar, rasam, buttermilk and pickle — made for anyone who needs it.

“No questions asked,” he said.

Trilok Babu underscored the importance of such charity in a situation that he said was unprecedented for him.

All of India is under lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus, a new kind (Sars-CoV-2) that was first detected in China and causes a potentially fatal respiratory illness, Covid-19.

In Tamil Nadu, over 300 people have, or have had, the virus, according to an India Today tracker . One person has died.

Many of the infections were traced to a religious congregation held at a markaz in Delhi’s Nizamuddin, now linked to a large cluster of coronavirus cases.

DRY RATIONS AND SANITISING KITS

Sneha Mohandoss, the founder of the NGO Food Bank, is also working to make sure people don’t go hungry during the lockdown and has teamed up with the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC).

Since the corporation is asking the public to provide dry rations instead of cooked food, the Food Bank, too, is asking its volunteers — a small number, since prohibitory orders are in place — to donate accordingly.

“We are a small group of volunteers working together, as it isn’t advisable for a huge group to be out on the streets,” said Sneha Mohandoss, one of several women who took over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Twitter account on Women’s Day this year.

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Food Bank is also using donations to make sanitising kits with soaps, masks, gloves and alcohol-based rub.

India’s lockdown is scheduled to end on April 14, having begun at midnight on March 24.

source: http://www.indiatoday.in / India Today / Home> News> India> Health / by Shalini Lobo / Chennai – April 03rd, 2020