Azhar Maqsusi, who founded the NGO Hunger Has No Religion, shares his journey with ThePrint Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on Walk The Talk.
New Delhi: Azhar Maqsusi’s bid to eliminate hunger from India is driven by personal ghosts. Speaking to ThePrint Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on Walk The Talk, Maqsusi, the 37-year-old founder of NGO Hunger Has No Religion, recalled his own tryst with hunger as a child.
“I was four when my father passed away. Our mother was a housewife and we were four brothers and one sister,” he said.
“Our maternal grandfather used to occasionally provide us with food, which enabled us to survive, sometimes on just one meal a day,” he added.
Maqsusi, who has been invited by celebrities like Salman Khan and Amitabh Bachchan on their TV shows, started his organisation in Hyderabad in 2012. It has now grown to have branches in multiple cities like Bengaluru, Raichur and Guwahati, and feeds approximately 1,000-1,200 hungry people daily.
“My aim is to completely remove hunger from India,” he said.
According to Maqsusi, who owns a Plaster of Paris business, it was a chance encounter with a crying woman at Hyderabad’s Dabirpura railway that set him on this across.
The woman could barely move or talk. Whenever he comes across a distressed person, Maqsusi said, he tries to understand why. On this occasion, a person nearby told him that the woman hadn’t eaten in two days. “I got her food from a hotel,” he told Gupta, “And prayed to Allah that, for as long as I am alive, give me the strength to remove everyone’s hunger.”
Maqsusi started serving food to the hungry immediately afterwards. The initial days were tough. For almost two years, it was just he and his family who managed everything.
“We faced frequent financial constraints initially and many a time had to buy food material on credit,” he said. “There were instances when I had to sell my store scrap and home newspapers just to keep us going.”
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With help from social media
However, a lot has changed since then. His organisation has expanded, and boasts of multiple volunteers.
Maqsusi is very active on social media, and credits Facebook for most of his contacts and volunteers. Whenever people contact him to undertake similar initiatives in their own cities, he not only encourages them but also supplies materials like rice from Hyderabad, he added.
When people contact him with the intention of contributing, Maqsusi first tells them “to just give me your wishes”.
“And if you want to contribute more, rather than donating me money, donate materials like rice,” he added, “There is no minimum requirement, even 1 kg salt will do.” But most importantly, he tells them, “If you really want to contribute, come and serve food to people with me one day.”
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Future plans and what keeps him going
Maqsusi, who set up a branch in Jharkhand recently, now plans to start one in Uttar Pradesh, his “favourite place”.
The state has seen a considerable increase in hatred among people, he said, adding that he hoped his organisation’s presence there could get the youth to contribute towards humanity and nation-building.
Asked what keeps him going, he said it was the blessings of those he had helped. “Once a woman whom I had fed gave me two rupees and asked me to keep them as her blessings,” he said, “Similarly, there are instances when people eat and then bless me for 10 minutes.”
“My dream is that one day I’ll sit with food but there won’t be any hungry people to feed,” he added.
Many drops create an ocean . Well done brother????