However, despite these sad and worrying times, if you look closely enough, you will find that acts of kindness are abundant just about everywhere.

Take for example, Jesvinder Singh and his friends who came up with the novel idea of delivering tasty, nutritious meals, all home cooked and completely free of charge, to Covid-19 patients at Sungai Buloh Hospital.

“The three of us – my nephew, my friend and I were sitting in our village discussing how the patients suffering from Covid-19 would need good, nutritious food that’s chock full of protein to give them the energy to fight the virus,” explained the 52-year-old to FMT.

However, the village which the group of three reside in is in Kalumpang, Selangor, a whopping 80km from Kuala Lumpur which would make delivering food to the hospital a rather arduous task.

Fortunately for the trio, Jesvinder knows someone who runs a restaurant in Jalan Masjid India, smack in the city centre.

“My close friend, Bhoopender Singh runs Jai Hind, a Punjabi restaurant and when I told him of my plan, he was very keen to help us out.”

Jesvinder added that the elderly folks from his village were understandably not very fond of hospital food and loved the food delivered from the restaurant.

“Instead of staying there for weeks, they were discharged in less than six days,” Jesvinder says, smiling.

Through the social media grapevine, news of the men’s food project spread like wildfire and before long, offers poured in from like-minded Malaysians who wanted to help in any way they could.

Now there are seven of them in the team, including those who have taken on the task of delivering hot food to the hospital.

Jesvinder says that all one has to do to receive a pack of food from Jai Hind is to furnish the team with some basic information.

“We require five details; the patient’s full name, name of hospital block, ward number, bed number and whether the patient desires vegetarian or non-vegetarian food.”

Each meal comes with rice or chapati, fresh vegetables and a protein source, plus tea, coffee or juice, and a dessert at dinner time.

According to Jesvinder, a variety of delicious meals are rolled out of the restaurant on a daily basis to fulfil the orders of the patients.

From freshly made chapatis, aloo paratha, tandoori chicken, chicken 65, rasam and fish sambal to sweet desserts like jalebi and ladoo to help bring a smile to a patient’s face.

The food is also specially prepared to ensure it is less spicy and less oily, something Jesvinder is so particular about, he even made a trip to the restaurant himself to oversee the cooking.

Tasty, nutritious food aside, the most outstanding aspect of Jesvinder’s food project that has touched many a heart is that it is delivered absolutely free of charge, regardless of who the patient is.

While the project has been a fulfilling endeavour for Jesvinder, it has also seen him stretched to the limits.

Besides holding down a nine-to-five job as a service delivery manager, he also coordinates the menu choices and oversees the transportation of the food to ensure that the right meals are delivered to the correct hospital block, floor and ward of each patient.

Jesvinder has received countless messages thanking him for his service and kindness. Unfortunately, there has also been the occasional negative nelly who he tries not to get affected by.

“We have received a few private calls at midnight and they question our actions and honestly, it’s been giving me sleepless nights.”

But he is grateful to have a boss who understands his charitable work and is fully supportive of it.

“We were earlier delivering food to about 40 patients and thankfully a few have been discharged.

“We are now down to serving about 35 patients and are currently in the midst of fine-tuning our SOPs before taking on more orders.”

FMT wishes Jesvinder and his team of merry helpers all the best in this truly altruistic effort.