K.V. Pratheesh’s daily schedule starts at 4.30 a.m. at the Valvachakostam temple run by the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) department in Kanniyakumari district, where he does odd jobs.
After work hours he will either join social workers who distribute food packets to poor people who could not work due to the COVID-19 lockdown or join sanitary workers cleaning the streets. He spends his money to prepare the food.
Mr. Pratheesh, 31, had his spleen removed surgically after an accident. He was in coma for two months. But a determined Mr. Pratheesh did not allow his condition to come in the way of his social work. “Now I am spraying bleaching power along with the sanitation workers. Even when Ockhi cyclone hit the district, I involved myself in relief work,” Mr. Pratheesh told The Hindu over phone.
A native of Aatruvalakam near Thuckalay, Mr. Pratheesh worked at construction sites after completing his school education.
“My family circumstances did not allow me to continue my studies. I also participated in the recruitment for the army but was not selected,” he said.
A few years ago, he fell from the second floor of a building when the scaffolding collapsed. “Doctors told me that the spleen had shattered with blood-clotting. I plunged into coma and gained consciousness after two months also underwent tracheotomy,” Mr Pratheesh said. About the health risk, he said the doctors in the government hospital in Thuckalay also warned him. “But I have left it to God. He will take care,” said Mr. Pratheesh.
