Raghu Makwana
Nominated for : Ensuring food for destitute.
Initiative - Began free tiffin service for 18 very poor people.
Nominated for : Ensuring food for destitute.
Initiative - Began free tiffin service for 18 very poor people.
He is the son that these old-age people never had. Living in despair, 18 of them and counting, these “parents” are destitute, helpless and abandoned by their own. Raghu Makwana is not only the man who provides for their daily meals, but also their son. Be it cold or energy-sapping heat, these meals unfailingly reach these 18 old-age people in Ranip twice a day. “It is not food that these people seek. It is love. Most of these people have no source of income, are childless, unable to cook by themselves or have been abandoned by their children,” Raghu tells Mirror.At a time when many children don’t look after their ageing parents, Raghu looks after these poor and deprived folks like they were his own. It is not just this selfless act of serving the old that is exceptional, neither is the fact that he serves these tiffins without any discrimination of community, caste or gender. What is remarkable is that Raghu does this despite losing both his legs to polio at the age of three. Polio has never been a handicap for him. “I have learnt to live with it and it does not deter me. If at all, it only adds to my determination to serve these people.”
So, how did the idea of helping out the old germinate? A Sai Baba devotee, Raghu regularly visits Sai Baba temple in Ranip. One day he came across an old woman beggar there. Raghu asked her if she needed anything. She gave him a prescription for medicine. “She was obviously unwell and needed medical help. I went to the drug store and got her the medicine.”
The next week when Raghu met her at the temple she cried when they met. “I do not have a son. You are my son,” she told him and then hugged him. It was this jadu ki jhappi that transformed Raghu. “If I was her son, I needed to take care of my mother. I decided she should get proper food.” So, about three years ago, Raghu started carrying a week’s supply of flour for her and her husband who begged at another temple. Once when Raghu did not visit the temple on a Thursday, he learnt that the old couple had gone hungry for three days as they were unwell and unable to beg. It is this that propelled Raghu to start a tiffin service not only for the couple but also for others like them.
Small hindrances, like lack of financial resources and limited income, did not matter to him. The spirit more than made up for it. Jayesh Patel, his employer at Gramshree, came to his aid. He provided the initial Rs 10,000 to start putting his idea into practice. A family living in Ranip — a woman and her two daughters-inlaw — cooked the food he needed to supply to these old-age people. Later, Patel also gave him a vehicle on which he now travels and delivers tiffins. The two sisters-in-law, Hansa and Monica Parmar, have been cooking meals for three years even as the mother-in-law is dead. They are all part of this venture now. As word got around, people started coming to his aid. Raghu did not know where the money for the next meal for his “parents” would come, but come it did. People from all walks of life started pooling in resources. Raghu has 50 volunteers, all labourers or from middle class, who give him Rs 100 a week by fasting once a week. He gets donations from people and supplies of cereals and other food stuff from all over Gujarat. Volunteers deliver the tiffins on the appointed day, Thursday, when he is not around.
So, how did the idea of helping out the old germinate? A Sai Baba devotee, Raghu regularly visits Sai Baba temple in Ranip. One day he came across an old woman beggar there. Raghu asked her if she needed anything. She gave him a prescription for medicine. “She was obviously unwell and needed medical help. I went to the drug store and got her the medicine.”
The next week when Raghu met her at the temple she cried when they met. “I do not have a son. You are my son,” she told him and then hugged him. It was this jadu ki jhappi that transformed Raghu. “If I was her son, I needed to take care of my mother. I decided she should get proper food.” So, about three years ago, Raghu started carrying a week’s supply of flour for her and her husband who begged at another temple. Once when Raghu did not visit the temple on a Thursday, he learnt that the old couple had gone hungry for three days as they were unwell and unable to beg. It is this that propelled Raghu to start a tiffin service not only for the couple but also for others like them.
Small hindrances, like lack of financial resources and limited income, did not matter to him. The spirit more than made up for it. Jayesh Patel, his employer at Gramshree, came to his aid. He provided the initial Rs 10,000 to start putting his idea into practice. A family living in Ranip — a woman and her two daughters-inlaw — cooked the food he needed to supply to these old-age people. Later, Patel also gave him a vehicle on which he now travels and delivers tiffins. The two sisters-in-law, Hansa and Monica Parmar, have been cooking meals for three years even as the mother-in-law is dead. They are all part of this venture now. As word got around, people started coming to his aid. Raghu did not know where the money for the next meal for his “parents” would come, but come it did. People from all walks of life started pooling in resources. Raghu has 50 volunteers, all labourers or from middle class, who give him Rs 100 a week by fasting once a week. He gets donations from people and supplies of cereals and other food stuff from all over Gujarat. Volunteers deliver the tiffins on the appointed day, Thursday, when he is not around.
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