THE LEFTOVER KINGS

Seeing people go without food and water for days in a bustling city can be a lifechanging event for many. It sure was for Mir Mustafa Ali Hashmi, a student of VIF College of Engineering and Technology.

Mustafa, along with some friends, started a NGO called G l ow T i d e ( f acebook. c om/ GlowTide), which has been distributing leftover food to the poor collected from various restaurants.

Looking back at that fateful day in 2012, Mustafa, an NRI student from Saudi Arabia, says, “I had gone to a café to get a sandwich, when I saw this guy. He was so thirsty that he was going to drink water from a drain, but some people stopped him and took him to the hospital.”

Now, staying alone with his classmate Abdul Mohsin, eating out had been a norm. Mustafa also realised that people who eat outside generally waste a lot of food. “On one hand, you have food being wasted because it’s too much to eat and, on the other, there are people who go without food for days together.”

With the support of his roommate Abdul and two other students, Syed Abdul Haseeb and Salman Muzammil Abbas, Mustafa approached restaurants, two in Toli Chowki and one in Begumpet, to be a part of their initiative.

“We collect food around twice a week. We go there after 10.30 pm and once all the food is collected, we distribute it to the people living on the footpaths. This usually goes on till 2 am. Our aim is to not have a hungry person in the city,” says the 21-year-old.