While Siddha-based home remedies are being floated to boost immunity and prevent an infection, a local government contractor has made it his mission to distribute rice porridge free made painstakingly of assorted condiments in his kitchen here.
For over the last year, A.N. Saravanan says, they have fed over 50,000 persons. “We started distributing porridge last Summer.”
Porridge made of an assortment of rich kitchen condiments that include cumin, black cumin, fennel seeds, asafoetida, mint, garlic, ginger, rice, turmeric, cinnamon, cloves, pepper, onions, coriander, salt, oregano and fenugreek are served to the public by a group of volunteers.
Mr. Saravanan’s kitchen is put to work at 7.30 p.m, “because the water needs boiling time”. The porridge is ready by 5.30 a.m, he says. The condiments are boiled to reduction in containers before the porridge is whipped up by the early hours of the morning.
“I bought special barrels from Tirupathur during the lockdown a few weeks ago,” he says. This year, he restarted serving up his porridge through groups of volunteers in different locations since April.
With no fear of the pandemic, and armed with volunteer cards, the group of men are distributing barrels in different locations starting from MC Palli and along the way, where the local volunteers distribute it to the people.“But outside the government hospital here, our own group distributes the porridge to the families of patients, or anyone who wants to drink,” he says.
Ask Mr. Saravanan of an approximate quantity of porridge his staff whips ups, and he says over 1,000 litres per day. “It’s no set figure. The number of takers seems to be only increasing even during the lockdown,” he says.
As for the funds to keep the flames burning, Mr. Saravanan says he pumps back his earnings from the building works he takes up for the government for feeding the public “with a healing-centric Siddhar based diet,” he says.