By S. Kenneth Shishir
While most people of his age and below prefer to sleep till the sun rises, 70-year-old M. Lalith Kumar Kothari Jain, a resident of Thyagaraja Road in K.R. Mohalla in city, wakes up at 4 am every day and gets ready to feed the poor, the needy and the strays. He says: “God has given me everything and what is the use of earning money when it is not useful to someone in distress or hungry.” Lalith Kumar, after his prayers, a long walk and yoga session, sets off on his scooter to purchase food packets comprising chow-chow bath, rice bath, idli and vada from one Najundappa, who owns a hotel on Basaveshwara Road and from Lakshmi Tiffanis, popular as Mallesh Hotel on Thyagaraja Road. Lalith Kumar, who owns Manik Bankers on Thyagaraja Road, has been offering food and sometimes clothes to the poor and the needy in city since over 15 years. Armed with about 80 to 90 food packets and about 250 biscuit packets packed in huge bags and suspended on his scooter, the septuagenarian first heads towards Thyagaraja Road Sai Baba Temple, Raghavendraswamy Mutt at Krishnamurthypuram, Raghavendraswamy Temple near Shanthala Theatre and proceeds towards Kote Anjaneyaswamy Temple. At each stop, he hands over the food packets to the needy people who wait for him regularly. From there, Lalith moves to Doddakere Maidan and parks his scooter there. Seeing him, one may wonder what this man does in the open ground. He just presses his scooter’s horn and lo, a pack of about 25-30 dogs come from all directions and stand near him, wagging tails with ears bent.
