by What if you could live your life completely devoted to serving others? One man decided to give it a shot.
This is Narayanan Krishnan’s story.
He was a bright, young, award-winning chef with a five-star hotel group, short-listed for an elite job in Switzerland. But a quick family visit home to Madurai, India before heading to Europe changed everything.
“I saw a very old man eating waste,” Krishnan said. “It really hurt me so much. I was literally shocked for a second. After that, I started giving that man food and decided this is what I should do the rest of my lifetime.”
Haunted by that experience, Krishnan quit his job within the week and returned home for good, convinced of his new destiny.
“That spark and that inspiration is a driving force still inside me as a flame — to serve all the mentally ill destitutes and people who cannot take care of themselves,” Krishnan said.
Krishnan founded his nonprofit Akshaya Trust in 2003. Now, he has served more than 1.2 million meals — breakfast, lunch and dinner — to India’s homeless and destitute, mostly elderly people abandoned by their families and often abused.
“Because of the poverty India faces, so many mentally ill people have been … left uncared [for] on the roadside of the city,” he said.
Krishnan’s day begins at 4 a.m. He and his team cover nearly 125 miles in a donated van, routinely working in temperatures topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
He seeks out the homeless under bridges and in the nooks and crannies between the city’s temples. The hot meals he delivers are simple, tasty vegetarian fare he personally prepares, packs and often hand-feeds to nearly 400 clients each day.
“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.”
Krishnan sleeps in Akshaya’s modest kitchen with his few co-workers. Since investing his entire savings of $2,500 in 2002, he has taken no salary and subsists with the help of his once-unsupportive parents.
“They had a lot of pain because they had spent a lot on my education,” he said. “I asked my mother, ‘Please come with me, see what I am doing.’ After coming back home, my mother said, ‘You feed all those people, the rest of the lifetime I am there, I will feed you.’ I’m living for Akshaya. My parents are taking care of me.”
Krishnan went on to raise funds to build the Akshaya Home, which currently provides food, care, and housing for 430 residents.
Despite the demands and few comforts his lifestyle affords, Krishnan says he’s enjoying his life.
“Now I am feeling so comfortable and so happy,” he says. “I have a passion, I enjoy my work. I want to live with my people.”
If you’d like to learn more or contribute to the Akshaya foundation, you can visit https://www.akshayausa.org/.
————
Content lightly edited from original sources: http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/04/01/cnnheroes.krishnan.hunger/index.html
Leave a Reply