In Pics: B’luru Volunteers Cook 20k Plates of Biryani for Migrants

Volunteers gathered at Palace Grounds to cook about 20,000 biryani meals for affected migrant workers on Eid.

Over a 100 volunteers gathered at Palace Grounds in Bengaluru to cook about 20,000 plates of biryani for distressed migrant workers.

(Photo: Bengaluru With Migrants/The Quint)

In order to do something special for stranded migrant workers this Eid, over 100 volunteers in Bengaluru got together to ensure that they get a good, hearty meal of biryani.

From the night of 24 May, volunteers and cooks gathered in shifts at Shringar Palace, a venue in Palace Grounds, and took over the kitchens to churn out a ‘festive’ meal of chicken biryani to celebrate the end of the holy month of Ramzan. Using crowd-sourced funds, food was prepared and distributed to nearly 20,000 people in places like Jakkur, Whitefield, Hegde Nagar, Jayanagar etc.

“Several people and organisations have come forward to help people with rations for the last many days so we wanted to do something special. We wanted them to have a rich feast and be happy today,” said Saquib Idrees, a student-volunteer and one of the founders of the initiative, Bengaluru With Migrants.

Saqib, Fahad Khalid, and Khaleel ur Rahman along with several volunteers have so far donated about 20,000 monthly ration kits, thousands of masks, sanitizers and face shields.

Here are some pictures of the preparation and distribution on Eid.

A peep into the open kitchen in Palace Grounds, readying to rustle up biryani on Eid.

A volunteer seen stirring a large pot at the open kitchen in Palace Grounds, Bengaluru.

Large scale arrangements in place at Palace Grounds, where volunteers prepared chicken biryani.

Volunteers pose with packages of biryani after the night-long cooking ended.

Packaging, wrapping and storing in progress on Monday morning. 

Many of the volunteers were students, utilising their free time in the community kitchen.

Masked and gloved volunteers loaded the packaged food into separate vehicles to take across the city.

Volunteers seen distributing biryani to migrant workers and their families.

Volunteers distributing a special meal of biryani to migrant workers in Marathahalli

Migrant workers queue up for a parcel of chicken biryani in Whitefield.

Splitting up into smaller groups in cars, voluntees covered a number of areas to distribute food.