To become a hero, does it require any doctorate degree? Does it require any bollywood background? Does it require any Political party tag? Or does it require to join Indian armed forces.
Well most of the people among us are thinking that it does. Let me introduce Mr. Narayanan Krishnan and I called him a real hero of India. (He is among some great personality in India)
Narayanan Krishnan (born 1981) is an Indian chef turned social worker. He quit his career as a leading chef and began supplying meals to the homeless in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India, beginning in 2002.
Krishnan was born in Madurai, Tamil Nadu. He was an award-winning chef with Taj Hotels, Bangalore and was short-listed for an elite job in Switzerland. During a visit to his family, before heading to Europe, he said, “I saw a very old man, literally eating his own human waste out of hunger. I went to the nearby hotel and asked them what was available. They had idli, which I bought and gave to the old man. Believe me; I had never seen a person eating so fast, ever. As he ate the food, his eyes were filled with tears. Those were the tears of happiness.”
Narayanan Krishnan, all of 29 years old now, does what he was professionally trained to do as a chef. Feed people. Only Krishnan does not do this in the swanky confines of a 5-star hotel. Every day, he wakes up at 4 am, cooks a simple hot meal and then, along with his team, loads it in a van and travels about 200 km feeding the homeless in Madurai, Tamil Nadu.
Krishnan feeds, often with his hands, almost 400 destitute people every day. And for those who need it, he provides a free haircut too.
According to CNN, eight years ago, this award-winning chef with a five-star hotel chain was all set to go to Switzerland for a high-profile posting. On a visit to a Madurai temple, he came across a homeless, old man eating his own human waste. That stark sight changed Krishnan’s life.
Much to the dismay of his parents, CNN says, Krishnan abandoned his career plans and decided to spend his life and his professional training in looking after those who could not care for themselves. He has provided more than 1.2 million hot meals through his non profit organization Akshaya Trust, and now hopes to extend this to shelter for the homeless too.
According to Krishnan, people are so desperately poor in his community, that they kick their own family members, often the mentally ill, out on the street. He cares for the community’s forgotten by feeding them three meals a day and in some cases, helping to bathe and cloth them. The program has grown significantly from when Krishnan established it in 2002. The first year the nonprofit served 3,600 meals and last year it served 360,000 meals.
His recipients are nearly all mentally ill, and do not have the capacity to thank him. Nonetheless, Krishnan receives great pleasure from the work he does.
“The panic, suffering of the human hunger is the driving force of me and my team members of Akshaya,” he said. “I get this energy from the people. The food which I cook … the enjoyment which they get is the energy. I see the soul. I want to save my people.”
Ref : Wikipedia, CNN, internet references
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