Hope Never Dies

There were these really thought provoking lines in the movie Fight Club, the one I'm talking about in particular here is the famous Brad Pitt dialogue, "I see all this potential, and I see it squandered. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables - slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war... Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won't. We're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off." Before February 2020, I used to believe this, until we got our great pandemic to fight. Every generation has its own tough times to overcome, and the Novel Coronavirus gave us our stories to be told for times to come. We faced things we had never thought of, and were put in situations none of us were prepared for.

The Novel Coronavirus pandemic imposed some of the most testing times of the 21st century upon people. These were the times that challenged everyone physically, mentally, and emotionally. But from the darkest of times came some of the brightest of stories.

As they say, if one begins to look, there's hope everywhere. One such instance was depicted by the initiative from Jharkhand's IAS officer Aditya Ranjan, who proved that where there's a will there's a way.

In a country as diverse and populated as India, with blooming and booming caste and class systems, it can become extremely challenging to ensure adequate food supply and proper access for all in regular times, let alone in a pandemic. However, there were a lot of people like Ranjan who took upon themselves to figure out ways to help those in dire needs.

Ranjan came out with the initiative called Meals on Wheels (MoW). In Chaibasa district of Jharkhand, the administrative authority started this initiative where a couple of vans managed to provide hot food to hundreds of thousands of people who were struck hardest by the lockdown, while ensuring all the safety measures of the pandemic. The purpose was to serve food to the elderly, the infirm, and the most underprivileged families within the district. The initiative served most to the people who had no means to cook during the lockdown. These vans were run solely through monetary and grain donation and no cost was borne by the district administration.

A food truck here also served as a way to teach the people in the area about the importance of social distancing and regular washing of hands by giving constant instructions to the people.

A lot of these stories emerged during the lockdown which made food a community building process.

Figure: Social distancing maintained near small food trucks.