<i>Prasanth Nair</i>, the man who is known as 'Collector Bro'

The image of Sulaimani chai, a concoction of black tea, cardamom and lemon juice, is no longer just a warm drink for people of Kozhikode, Kerala. Instead, it now represents a scheme where the needy can have “food with dignity” powered by anonymous donations. 

The idea for this scheme, called Operation Sulaimani. came from projects like Food-On-The-Wall, and the Malayalam movie Ustad Hotel (2012) where the protagonist, a hotel owner in Kozhikode, keeps a part of his income to feed the hungry. 

The man behind this scheme is Prasanth Nair, a law graduate who took over as the district collector of Kozhikode in February 2015. A film buff, Nair’s signature way of working has been the extensive use of social media to crowdsource projects. And cash is rarely ever involved. 

But for all the unorthodox ways he gets things fixed, Nair is best known for crowdsourcing the clean-up of the Pisharikavu lake. After asking for volunteers to step up, Nair Facebooked “will give you biryani.” The ruse worked: the 16-acre lake was cleared of water hyacinths and dirt in a single day and about 800 volunteers were treated to Malabar biryani.

“I think you should be able to bring in excitement in the work that you do; it doesn’t have to be drab. You should be able to get people excited and involved,” says Nair. 

After Nair saw the deplorable condition of the inmates at the British-era Mental Health Centre in Kozhikode, he realised that the place needed an “urgent intervention.” Instead of waiting for government funds to come around, Nair mobilised people via a Facebook post. From wheelchairs to steel plates and cots, the hospital received everything it required within two weeks.

Monsoons have had the distinct ability of connecting generations of students to their district collectors: following a heavy downpour, the district collector would announce that schools and colleges would remain shut. But this communication has always been known to be one-way.

When it poured down in Kozhikode last year, a college-goer inboxed the collector’s official Facebook page in the early hours of a Monday morning, asking if a holiday was to be announced. He was surprised to receive an answer from Nair. “Nothing, go to your classes.” 

People immediately recognised the line as a dialogue from the romantic comedy Aye Auto (1990) in which megastar Mohanlal essays the role of Sudhi, the semi-literate protagonist. 

Nair personally handles the official Facebook page of Collector Kozhikode, and regularly peppers the posts with dialogues from Malayalam cinema. Such is his popularity that Nair is now called “Collector Bro”.

“I know some senior officers are not very comfortable with how informal things are as the old school of thought says that you should be serious because of the office you hold. But that’s okay, you can’t appease everyone,” says Nair.

When Nair isn’t using social media to mobilise people, he likes to dabble in photography. And, he has a fondness for story-writing: it’s a love that shines through in a promotional video for a volunteer-driven project called Compassionate Kozhikode (Operation Sulaimani is one of the projects under this).

“He has a very strong element of anarchism in him,” notes Suresh Kumar, a pioneer of palliative health care in India who has known Nair for over nine years. 

What makes Nair stand out, feels Kumar, is that he treats everyone on an equal footing. “Climbing up the bureaucratic hierarchy hasn't affected his views or sense of priority.”

While working with the sub-collector’s office in Mananthavady, Wayanad, “he would take labourers and tea-estate workers to cinema theatres,” remembers Kumar. Once he became the collector, Nair also put an end to the practice of visiting politicians and other bureaucrats at their residences. It’s first-come, first-served in his office now. 

Nair feels his style of functioning, which discourages the use of “Sir”, is highly sustainable. “We are told at the academy to get people involved in participative governance and use informal modes of communication; I am just putting it into practice.”   

But Nair’s style of statesmanship may not work everywhere, feels Kumar. “The concept of crowdsourcing and public participation can definitely be replicated, but his approach is actually very risky,” says Kumar, laughing. 

“The whole concept of Compassionate Kozhikode is based on the relationship and trust between him and the people. I doubt there will be many bureaucrats who will be confident enough to take this kind of risk,” he says. 

Nair currently has a bunch of film scripts in progress. For documentary projects, perhaps? “No, commercial films. Maybe I’ll find some time for them next year,” he says.