On the phone, Melville Doyle sounds low-pitched and soft-toned, and his spoken sentences end with an almost involuntary, suppressed sound, indicating a polite and friendly smile.
It is not the tone of speech one would readily associate with someone who can fight and overpower a hardened criminal that would stop at nothing to make his escape. It is certainly not the tone that goes easily with someone who would put himself in harm’s way to help others. It is not how you would expect someone hooked on Wild West movies to utter his lines.
In the summer of 2012, soft-spoken Melville, 31 years old then, emerged a hero in a sensational murder case at Malliga Nagar in Pallavaram, where an old man was fatally stabbed by two of his former employees. The crime took place in the wee hours, and when the duo was decamping with a hefty loot, Melville arrived on the scene having heard a racket from the ground floor where the old man lived. Melville confronted the criminals and in the fight that ensued, he had the upper hand, and which led to the immediate arrest of the duo. Newspaper reports of the cold-blooded murder mentioned Melville’s heroics; he was however erroneously named D. Merwin in some reports, probably because the rarity of his real name led to an error in the initial police report about the incident.
Melville’s bravery found mention in the pages of The Hindu . Melville would go on to receive recognition and a reward from the hands of J.K. Tripathy, who was at tha time serving as the Chennai city police commissioner. Melville also recalls that social activist V. Santhanam honoured him at an event for his bravery.
Thirty-nine years old now, Melville still doesn’t seem to think twice before putting himself out there and taking risks so that others are helped.
“In April, when the first lockdown was in place, visually-impaired people and their families who live in quarters provided to them by an organisation for the visually impaired, in an area that comes under Veteran Lines, were struggling to get supplies as the people nearby were scared of venturing out and reaching out to anybody. There are 18 families staying at the quarters. I started cooking for them, and I have known some of them for a long time, and used to spend some time with them every day when I was working at a BPO. As my work would happen late in the evening, I had time to spare for them during the day, helping them get to the places they had to go to. As autorickshaws would be expensive, I would take them by bike to where they wanted to go — on occasions I had even borrowed a bike from someone I knew. to do so,” discloses Melville.
Melville could now slip easily into the role of a food-provider as he maintains a kitchen in a part of Veteran Lines that has a distinctly Anglo-Indian flavour. A small Anglo-Indian population still lives there and a majority of the houses, which are leased out by the Pallavaram Cantonment Board to the residents, lie unoccupied. Melville runs his food outlet from a house in Veteran Lines, and he calls it Cowboys’ Corner, displaying his penchant for the Wild West.
“I run the kitchen for a year now, and in the best of times, it has not done great business. Right now, having the kitchen with its utensils and other stuff is helpful in reaching out to so many people who need food,” Melville reasons it out.
When it was open for business, Melville says, the kitchen would turn out all sorts of cutlets, rolls and noodles as an evening fare — something attested by noted dance choreographer Andrea Jacob — but now it produces a regular fare, and the activity is centred around morning and afternoon hours.
“So, there is idly-chutney , chapathi-channa masala and lemon rice, to name a few, and they are aimed at a wider section of people to whom it will be given free,” explains Melville.
He distributes food, which he also cooks with the help of a small team of associates, in fact more friends than co-workers, to the needy in and around Pallavaram, and providing migrant workers with a kit bag of essentials. His work is supported largely by a section of the Indian disapora in Dubai as they provide him with funds.
He sure has Coronavirus-induced business worries to think about, but he doesn't seem too unsettled by it.
He explains, “My wife is in a corporate job, and that ensures a steady income for the family; and once things normalise, I want to try out new things in my food business.”
You can wager a bet that he is thinking of how to tweak and amplify its cowboy theme.
