As the world grapples to face the hardships of the lockdown in the wake of Covid-19, it’s rare to find silver linings on the horizon. The news of people succumbing to the virus or the economy coming to a standstill or migrant workers passing another night without food and shelter, the gloomy cloud has engulfed everything, everywhere and everyone. But there are unsung heroes with an urge and inner confidence not to be lost in the darkness and beam themselves as rays of hope and light.

A shining example of this tribe is this young Kashmiri volunteer from Srinagar. Salim Malik has been risking his own life to reach out to stranded migrant workers, widows and daily wage earners and ensure they don’t pass a night without food. Over the last two weeks, Salim has turned out to be the proverbial angel, going from home to home and delivering more than 4000 kg of food supplies to over 1600 Individuals/Families on behalf of the Art of Living. What makes Salim’s efforts superhuman is that he is doing it in Srinagar and Pulwama, which often resemble a warzone even without the Corona lockdown. Just to give a perspective to the scale of the challenge, most of the trucks carrying foodgrains from Punjab come only up to Jammu and don’t further due to the social and political uncertainties Kashmir has been facing. Now, imagine the challenge of getting groceries during such a national lockdown and transporting them to needy families!

As the saying goes, nothing can stop the Salims who want to do good! And this Kashmiri youth has found his template to beat the odds. Get up early, do his morning namaz and set out in a mission of scouting routine essentials like rice, atta, dal, etc. He then loads his car with whatever he gets and transports the items to his house which also doubles as an Art of Living Facilitation Centre. After repacking into packets of proportionate quantity, he undertakes the task of delivering food supply to labourers stranded in and around Srinagar. Salim collects information of the labourers and their contacts over the phone and distributes the supply directly, one-to-one basis with the AOL team.

As the saying goes, nothing can stop the Salims who want to do good! And this Kashmiri youth has found his template to beat the odds. Get up early, do his morning namaz and set out in a mission of scouting routine essentials like rice, atta, dal, etc. He then loads his car with whatever he gets and transports the items to his house which also doubles as an Art of Living Facilitation Centre. After repacking into packets of proportionate quantity, he undertakes the task of delivering food supply to labourers stranded in and around Srinagar. Salim collects information of the labourers and their contacts over the phone and distributes the supply directly, one-to-one basis with the AOL team.

Kashmiris are used to lockouts and they normally store food or have land to grow their own food. Often markets go dry of supply even during “normal” days. After the nationwide Janata Curfew on 22nd March, thousands of migrant labourers from interior parts of Kashmir rushed to Srinagar hoping to find an exit conveyance to reach their native places but got stranded in Srinagar following to public transport were stopped.

“When we heard about their plight, I contacted called the District Magistrate (DM) & DG Police and expressed the Art of Living’s desire to provide food for daily wage workers as Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar had already started a nationwide initiative to provide food to them,” narrates Deepak Sharma, the head of Art of Living’s rural development programmes, who himself is stranded in Srinagar where he came to inspect the 13 skill training centres run by the Art of Living in the state.

The administration team including DIG helped the Art of Living volunteers connect with migrant workers who came to them seeking help through J&K Police HOs and SHO. “The biggest challenge was to find groceries in Srinagar and also find a means of transportation,” Deepak explains. The difficulty and the risks involved meant that only a hero can do it. And our hero Salim was born!

And he is proudly digging in there with a target of reaching out to at least half of the 6,700 migrant and daily wage workers stranded in and around Srinagar. “To reach out to different people across Kashmir, we used our local contacts,” says Salim, whose grandfather was a decorated freedom fighter, who took part in India’s freedom struggle.

“The best part of this project is that local Kashmiri members of the Art of Living have contributed and become a part of this movement.  Some donated money, some made their cars available for transport and other their time,” Deepak reveals. Deputy Commissioner of Srinagar Dr Shahid Iqbal Choudhary and DIG Sh Mohammad Suleman has lauded the committed efforts of the Art of Living to come to the rescue of the stranded migrant workers

The Art of Living along with its partner organization International Association for Human Values has been working to provide relief material in all corners of the country, from Maharashtra, Karnataka, Punjab, MP, West Bengal and Chattisgarh to Telangana, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir. So far, the initiative has reached out to over a million daily wage workers and migrant labourers stuck in different parts of the country. The over 600 tons of relief material sent out to various parts of the country so far include food material, medicine supplies and sanitizers.