a trivial act may make a big difference to someone else

I feel somewhat silly writing a small thing like this making a mountain out of a molehill, had forgotten about it, but just recollected it when I got the Smile Newsletter which said : “Share A Kindness Story. Please tell us of a kind act you’ve done, experienced, or even heard of. “

Since we don’t know the way, we have to ask for directions every two minutes. Instead of mapquest-dot-com, India relies on human beings. That’s bad in some ways, that’s inefficient in certain other ways, but it’s heartwarming in few very important ways. – Nipun

And so it was that an elderly man asked me directions for some Nirmala Convent in Malleswaram.

It was a few days ago, I was just leaving the hospital to visit home after having spent the morning with my new born son. I was just starting my scooter, when he approached me. I had no idea about the location, but I knew a Cluny Convent school since I’d studied there and guessing by other details he’d said, I felt it might be somewhere around. I was just about to leave, but he looked tired, so I offered him a lift. I was wondering if he’d manage to sit on the rather lofty seat of my Kinetic Blaze, but he was up to it.

As I drove slowly, he told his story, that he based in Chennai, had visited the ISCKON temple here in Bangalore and had missed finding his way back to his place. We reached Cluny Convent in a couple of minutes, and then found that we still had no idea where his place was. He had a phone number and wanted to call from some booth. He kept asking me to carry on, and I was about to leave him but somehow offerred him my mobile. With some reluctance he made the call, and sure enough it turned out to be a bit further ahead. So I took the directions from the recepient of the call, and then dropped him off at his place.

He was kind of apologetic for having troubled me, though I was really happy that I was able to have been useful to someone (for a change 😉 )

I was really glad I hadn’t just given him directions and left, because it had turned out to be quite a distance, and not very easy to locate either. Just 10 minutes of time from me, reduced probably a half a day of exhausting walking around in the morning son for an elderly gentleman.