Eating Out

People, regardless of which strata they come from, are warm and thoughtful when theychoose to be. We have experienced that in many ways—big and small—in ourseven-year journey with The Banyan, an organisation we run for rehabilitating the mentallyill. And Jayendra and P.C. Sreeram are two such people. Both of them are directors ofadvertising production firm, JS Films, a division of Real Image Media Technologies, acompany which provides state-of-the-art, cutting edge technology to the Indianentertainment industry. Not to forget that PC is also a renowned cinematographer with aseries of big hits to his credit. True, we have literally been talking, eating, sleepingmental illness at The Banyan, but this time the setting was different. This time, we coulddo anything. We could talk, look ahead or behind or just dine in silence. In fact, we didnot even have to try hard to get the generally reticent Sreeram and even more tight-lippedJayendra to speak. The place we chose was Copper Chimney, a great joint in Chennai’sFood District—Cathedral Road.

For starters we ordered the tastiest aloo chutneywala and vegetable sheekhkabab. Watermelon juice and a fruit punch (the best in town) came in as accompaniments.Not surprisingly, The Banyan somehow features in everything we talk. A new building iscoming up and these are days of anxious anticipation and tension. The road ahead lookstough. Jayendra and PC tell us not to worry. But we can’t wish away the fact thatthere is no significant corpus fund now to run the expensive new place which offers a hostof facilities for the mentally ill. Running a social welfare organisation is all aboutfund-raising, fund-raising and more fund-raising. But there have been far too many people,who propped up from nowhere, to give us the strength. PC for instance. "I amcommitted to the camera," he says. "I will try and do what I can for others withmy camera," he adds. For Jayendra, the message has always always been bigger than themedium. Every once in a while he steps out of his directorial robes to look at the worldaround and do what he can. But we have not forgotten to live our lives. We enjoy good foodand movies. Just as we wound up on pudina parathas and dal maharani, the humbling thoughtwafts in—in a country of a billion, where one per cent could be mentally ill, we havemanaged to touch the lives of 450 women. In seven years. One microscopic drop in an ocean.But still, one drop nevertheless.