There are many restaurants, Hindu and Muslim that follow this practice. Other than gurdwaras, temples feed people on a large scale, especially on festivals. In Varanasi and other pilgrimage spots, huge amounts of food are given out daily, except it is extraordinarily unchic to see any good being done by Hindu institutions! In Kolkata, for example, in the Dakshieshwar Kali Temple and also in Belur Math, anyone who comes and puts in their name [preferably] earlyish in the morning [to help gauge numbers and prevent waste, in the heat] are seated in the lunch, so are those who have not registered, besides indigent people and holy renunciants of all religions.
Many Hindu households, however poor, carry out a ritual called mushthi-bhiksha, meaning "a handful of alms." Each day, while the mistress of the house is measuring out the rice for her family, she will set aside one handful. believe me, in the sixties when people were very poor and food was scarce, this was a terrible sacrifice, and yet it never flagged. At the end of the week, this is gathered and sent to a religious organization that regularly feeds the poor.
A lot of households carry on feeding and other forms of charity very invisibly, so as not to shame those who have to receive such.
Feeding prasad, giving food to someone to enters into a temple is a time honored custom, even a little food is given, and sometimes a whole meal, depending on the resources of the temple. ISKCON carries out this tradition faithfully in every center in the world, including in India. Large Southern temples used to do this faithfully as well; how faithfully they maintain this charter in the face of modernization and their commercialization, I cannot say. This modern disease of price-watching/cost issues has infected some temple managements in the Brajadham, Mathura-Vrindavan, where food used to be lavished on all, and all the exact same excellent quality.
One other very very important tradition still in force: for the donation of actually a pretty nominal sum, the temple then supplies an aged person or designated relative food, or the consecrated prasad, every day, without fail, for the rest of his/her life. Even sending it over in a tiffin carrier. I was very happy to see this going strong in diverse locations, Kolkata, Vrindavan, ultra-traditional temples, ultra-liberal. Wow!
Now the food they supply might not be stuff that a very old person can comfortably chew , in Vridavan: a lovely huge round chappai or roti, soaked in pure ghee, 2 or 3 vegetable preparations [SriRadha-Krishna must have strong gall bladders to tolerate so much loving attention in the form of pure ghee], big cup of boondee sweet, dahi (plain), more than enough calories, but not necessarily a good geriatric diet!!!
In Kolkata, a poorer temple, thankfully far less or no ghee!! But good food supplied daily in a quaint little tiffin carrier to an aged person, regardless of income or status. These things count for a lot. Temples serve huge needs in India that outsiders do not see or understand. Often they demonstrate attitude, part of a certain supercilious patronizing that never leaves a certain unfortunate few, with regard to India.
[I dread the opposite type of visitor, too, for whom everything Indian is hallowed. I meet some where I live, and they look at me as if I were a traitor for trying to disabuse them of some of their fantastical notions. I tell them that unlike them, I shall never ever have a round-trip ticket from India, no matter where I live or die.]
P.S. It is very interesting looking at India through the eyes of a visitor. Take, for instance, this issue of meat. Although I come from a poor background, this matter of "bad" meat has never once crossed my mind in all the years I lived in India. Maybe because of eating seldom in restaurants, and then, the type of restaurants one did choose. I am simply flabbergasted at visitors complaining about bad meat: Jyotida will have read some of my writings on the subject of meat on another forum and he will concur that most Indians writing here purchase their meat from a known butcher, and NEVER have been known to suffer from the problem described as bad meat!!
Also, the matter of overcharging: if people are purchasing their foods and snacks in good places like Nathu's in Delhi, with posted prices, I doubt if visitors are mistreated. If you are scraping the bottom feeders, there are fewer guarantees. But see the early posts here:http://pleasuremountain.wordpress.com/
Edited by gautam, 24 October 2007 - 06:50 AM.
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we set off Karims. 
of BLOWIN IN THE WIND (& he wasn't even drinking at this point).
However this time when i left i decided to have a wander & a nosey further up the street, where i discovered there were more of these restaurants with poor people sat waiting for a meal. I was wondering (& i'm sure Jyoti da will know the answer) whether this is just something unique to this street or to Delhi, or is it something Moslems do all over India & also whether it's just Moslems that offer this service???? 
If not i have another solution for your singing Jyoti da 
KK
