Not a day goes by when the cancer-afflicted near Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai go hungry.
Satish Bodas/Rediff.com meets hunger warrior Bulbul Roy.
Everybody knows where to find the best-tasting free food in Parel, south central Mumbai.
They all queue in front of Bulbul Roy's black-and-yellow Maruti van taxi near the Tata Memorial Hospital, on E Borges Road, Parel, to pick up loaded paper plates of piping hot khichuri, a Bengali-style khichdi.
The khichuri must be rather tasty too -- and comfortingly remind people of home -- because the folks are usually tucking into it quite heartily.
It is quite apparent that many of the hungry folks there to get a meal courtesy Roy are in treatment at Tata Memorial, the city's premier cancer hospital.
When Roy, who hails from a small village in West Bengal, was a child of 12 her father became fatally sick with cancer and finding meals for him was difficult. At times he was unable to take in any food because he was so ill.
After he died, Roy grew up and she married and moved to Mumbai, she decided to provide free services, in memory of her father, to those camped near Tata Memorial.
Roy, who along with her husband sells blankets at a roadside stall nearby, spent the past 12 years diligently helping clueless, less-educated cancer patients, who had journeyed down to Tata from interior Assam, Tripura or West Bengal, and didn't know much Hindi, to understand their doctors' instructions, put their medical files together, assist them in finding accommodation and generally find their bearings in this sometimes unkind city.
"I feel like I never did anything for my Papa. Whatever I am doing for patients is because of my father," she says emotionally. "I feel like I am doing something for my father."
When the COVID-19 pandemic began and the lockdown suddenly happened, nearly overnight, the kind-hearted, conscientious Roy started worrying that her cancer patients, still bunked down near the hospital, would not have enough to eat.
That's when she began organising 350 meals a day for them.
"I started on April 2, 2020. I felt if I didn;t go to my patients, they will not get food. I had no other fear." She was not scared of COVID-19.
Roy feels compelled to do her rounds 24/7: "Itna bareesh mein bheeg bheeg ke patient log mera khana leta hai (Even in heavy rain. the drenched patients are waiting to take my food)."
There are hordes of people living on the pavements in and around the hospital, in often pitiful circumstances.
Video: Bulbul Roy on why she feeds those suffering from cancer at 17 locations in Mumbai daily. Interview: Satish Bodas/Rediff.com. Video: Satish Bodas/Rediff.com and Afsar Dayatar/Rediff.com
Water is scarce. So are bathrooms.
Many of these people are in Mumbai, from faraway villages and towns across India, are being treated in the outpatient department at the hospital. Accommodation in Mumbai costs a pretty penny and so the patients and their families take to living in the streets.
And then food becomes a problem.
Roy, wearing a mask, a white coat and gloves providing generous portions from her giant handis of home-cooked food is an angel in disguise.
The Akshardhara Foundation helps Roy cook the food and foots the bill.
Come rain or shine, Roy visits 17 locations, including Tata Memorial, where cancer patients need food.
She says there is a special satisfaction in this work for her, which she values greatly: "They say when they come in front of me they feel happy and like they are not sick. As long as I am alive, I will do this work. I told my daughter to do the same."
