Come rain or shine, flood or pandemic, the spirit of Chennaiites does not deter. It’s once again apparent in the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The cycling and biker communities of the city are riding the extra mile to reach out to the patients and those quarantined to deliver food, groceries, and medicines.
Biker and HR professional Shivaraju Mallan’s day starts as early as 3 am. A resident of Adambakkam, he visits the market, buys vegetables and groceries, and delivers to the NGOs and families who prepare food for those in treatment and quarantine. He says that except for cooking the food, he and 38 bikers help with procuring, packing, and delivering everything needed to ease the lives of those affected by the virus in the city.
The team takes turns so that their jobs are not affected. While Shivaraju returns home before 9 am after delivering breakfast to start his work, whoever is free takes over to supply items depending on their requirements received through WhatsApp, phones, and other channels. They also have hosted a Google sheet to track the requests and attend to them. Shivaraju handles this along with Oswald and others.
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Karthik, a resident of Nanganallur, who works with one of the MNC’s, says they have been attending to hundreds of deliveries free of cost since they started the volunteering work. Shivaraju adds that as they are long-distance bikers, they don’t really bother to cover long distances, and hence they can spread their services to the entire city. On average, they cater to 20 requests for medicines and essentials, whereas they deliver 250 food packets three times a day, including an old age home where 45 of its inmates are affected by the virus.
Shanmuga Sundar Lakshmanan from Porur and his team of Chennai Cyclists came up with a poster with the name Relief Riders in the first week of May. They have been servicing the city through 120 volunteers covering an average of 30 km per day. Shanmuga Sundar says that if the distance is too long, they resort to relay rides to reach out to patients. He started his volunteering work during last year’s lockdown.
“In April 2020, I was part of the team that distributed food to the strays in the city. For the convenience of carrying food, we used bikes then. But this time, we are using our bicycles,” Shanmuga says.
The volunteers spend from their pockets for the fuel and do not take any service charges.
“For the past three months, our team has not taken any long-distance bike rides. That way we had some savings and we also pooled in some money. Besides volunteering, we have been supporting families who have lost their jobs and wages in the pandemic. We supply food and groceries to them to tide over the crisis,” Shivaraju says.
Having noticed their unrelenting efforts, the civic body of the city appreciated the volunteers with badges. They also have identity cards now, which help them in their movement across the city without restrictions. As Tamil Nadu has been going through a complete lockdown since May 24, the state’s COVID-19 War Room, too, has started taking their help to extend support to the affected patients.