This Hyderabadi ‘food’ Samaritan is an inspiration

Hyderabad-based fashion designer Niharika Reddy is supplying free food for nearly 150 Covid patients at their doorstep

Hyderabad: These are times when each and every helping hand counts. And that is where people like city-based fashion designer Niharika Reddy make a difference.

With the Covid-19 second wave continuing to keep the city on tenterhooks, Niharika is doing her part by ensuring free food for Covid patients who are struggling to find food for themselves. It all started when she posted on her social media profile that she would be supplying nutritious food for Covid patients. The next day, she got an order for 40 meals. And now, the mother of two is busy supplying food to 150 people every day.

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“I got calls even from people in the US, saying their parents here were positive and could not go out and whether I could provide food for them,” says Niharika, who is not taking any donations from anybody. But if someone comes forward ready to help, she is guiding them to sponsor groceries for the needy for a month or two.

Niharika is sending lunch and dinner for Covid patients and has planned a menu on a daily basis. She usually prepares one rice item (tomato rice, biryani, pudina rice, coriander rice or jeera rice), curries like dal fry, paneer curry, broccoli, beans curry, carrot curry, sambar, rasam, salad, curd and a dry fruit laddoo, and a fruit juice every day for lunch while for dinner, rotis and chapatis are included. She packs them neatly in spill-proof packing disposables along with her children and her helpers.

“My brothers and my driver take all precautions. They deliver food parcels to the patients. They keep it outside the house and give a call to the patients who then pick up the parcel. As of now, we are delivering to areas that are close by like Srinagar colony, Panjagutta, Jubilee Hills, Banjara Hills, Yousufguda etc.. But if there is a genuine request from other areas, we are ready to help them as well,” says Niharika, whose children Aishwariya and Yasho also take orders and help in packing the food.

Niharika takes help in cooking from Lakshmi, whose daughters Sowmya and Renuka help with other works and for delivery, she is helped by her brothers Ganesh and Satish and driver Nagaraju.

“I feel very happy when I receive calls and messages that the patients have recovered by having the tasty and nutritious food supplied by us. And I also feel happy when a few people started to draw inspiration from me and are helping people in their surroundings,” smiles Niharika, who is also helping people by co-ordinating requests for plasma, hospital beds, medicines and groceries in both the Telugu States.