May 2006
Hi Everybody at Quantum Leap,
I have been regularly visiting and reading your site. I find it very enlightening.
I am generally a very whimsical person when it comes to doing something for people around me. I don't like to brag or tell anyone about it. Neither do I plan it. I just do it impromptu. So you could call it a random act of kindness...
In Delhi where I live there are many rickshaw pullers. Some of these men are working for years and I know them since I moved here in 1988. Some of them were just young boys who ferried between our home and the bus stop and the market for merely Rs.3 to 4 (which is about 6 to 8 cents). They are very poor. Most of the male members of the family have to pull rickshaws for all day to get enough to buy a little rice. Most of these men are displaced villagers, who come to the city in search of work. They must have lost their land to the moneylender or the flood or the drought played havoc on their harvest and forced them to come to the city. But they are very proud people as well. Like villagers everywhere in the world they won't accept alms, instead insisting on working hard to earn their living. They detest being pitied.
This incident happened on a very cold December night when I was returning from the bus stop. Since the road to my house was through a dark alley, I took a rickshaw. It was very cold and I was fully covered in warm clothes. I noticed that the rickshaw puller was a young boy about 14-15 yr old. He was only wearing a thin t-shirt and a pajama. When I reached home I saw that in my purse there was no change. So I asked him to wait and went upstairs to get the money for him. Once home, I opened my sweater and took the money and was going down when I just stopped for a second and took the sweater and went down. I gave him the money and gave him the sweater with the other hand, and told him sweetly (in Hindi) "brother, take this, you are cold." His lips were almost white because of the cold. Normally he would have refused. But he slowly looked at me and took his hands out from under his armpits and took the coat. I was so thrilled. And he was more than thrilled. He rode off on his rickshaw whistling away.
After that I didn't return late so didn't take a rickshaw for several months. Then again one night it got late and when I reached the rickshaw stand, I was about to board one rickshaw when I spotted the boy in my sweater, grinning ear to ear. I thought I would get down and take his rickshaw so that he will get some money. He also noticed that I was getting off the one I was planning to get on. He immediately stopped me and said, "sister, take his rickshaw, he is very poor, he lost his father. Give him something." Then I noticed my new rickshaw puller was an equally small boy with bright big eyes. I was touched by my friend's gesture to help a fellow poor boy. Some think that poverty makes people greedy and selfish. On the contrary he was so kind to let go of his fare to help another boy.
So I took this new rickshaw. This boy already had a sweater, so I went home and got a pair of sneakers for him, cause he had only a pair of Hawaii (thong) slippers on.
I never met those two boys ever after that night. Many years have gone by and I have done several such random acts, but this one incident has touched me so -- kindness is like the Olympic flame. You have to keep on passing it around, and never let it die. Kindness is just another word for love. When we say we love some people we mean our close family and friends. But there is another kind of love we feel for your fellow creatures on earth, and we name it kindness.
"Kindness is one infection that I would want to spread like an epidemic." If through your journal we can reach more and more people and infect them, then we will bring smiles to so many faces and the gap between haves and have-nots will be so greatly reduced.
My purpose of sharing this story is to move more people to practice acts of kindness.
Thank you.
Best of luck for your work towards making a change in everyone’s lives.
Sangeeta Das
Delhi, India
