THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Three-year-old Sneha and eighty-six-year-old Rathnammal had a naive smile on their faces when Chief Minister Oommen Chandy served rice on to their plantain leaves. Later, when Oommen Chandy sat opposite them to dine, they even looked a bit shy and glanced at the him with some degree of uneasiness. All these happened at the Onam feast organised for the inmates of SMSS Hindu Mahila Mandiram, Poojappura by the police officers of the Poojappura station on Monday. Chandy, V Sivankutty MLA , music director M Jayachandran and police officers, including City Police Commissioner Manoj Abraham and Deputy Commissioner Rajpal Meena, dined with the inmates of the Mandiram. According to Radhalakshmi Padmarajan, the vice-president of the Mandiram, the programme was a morale booster for the young women. “They now feel that they are not alone in the world,” she said. The joy of the girls knew no bounds when the dignitaries entered the dining room located behind Chinnamma Memorial High School. As Chandy and Sivankutty sat down to dine, police officers who were loitering around picked up momentum to serve food for their VIP guests. The otherwise lathi-wielding hands carried trays and ‘payasam’ pans and hastened to serve the guests. Lady officers eclipsed their male counterparts in serving, as they ran through the closely-arranged tables at times stumbling upon the photographers crowded at the venue. For the police officers, this is a duty that they have been performing for years. ‘’This is a proud moment for us. We want to make them feel that they are not alone. Honestly, this is not an ‘annadanam’, but our token of care and love for them,’’ said Poojapura ASI Sunil Lal, who had taken the pain to organise the event along with his colleagues. . Among the inmates were two children recently brought in by the Child Welfare Committee to the Mandiram. Nine-year-old Jaba from Nagercoil and and ten-year-old Kajal from Delhi. Even in the midst of the celebrations, Jaba was pleading to let her go to her mother. One of the caretakers said that they could not track down her mother. The other girl from Delhi was thrilled at all the fun and frolic. “Sab acha lagtha hai,” she said. This was the first time that she was having a traditional Kerala lunch and she seemed to enjoy that. After the feast, ‘onakkodi’ sponsored by the police officers were also distributed to the inmates.
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