Acts of Kindness

‘Kindness is the language the deaf can hear
and the blind can see’

Being Kind

Every morning I wake up to peep outside the window of my room and see little birds being helped by the elder ones for food and warmth. They don’t actually have to speak it out but quite conspicuously; the elders know what they want. They don’t care for their disrupted rest to extend a helping hand. That is what we call KINDNESS.

A young girl went to a garden with her father and found an exceptionally beautiful flower. She liked it so much that she just wanted to take it home. She asked her father to pluck it for her, only to get a ‘no’ in reply. “But why not, daddy? Won’t it adore our house?” the girl questioned. To this her father gave a beautiful reply, “My heart, I empathize with you. But one thing about the flower which you can’t see is that it too feels. It gets hurt, just like you, when you pluck it. A flower which adores your house does so by inflicting pain on itself. It looks beautiful only as long as it is here, but once you pluck it, it begins to loose its charm. You know why? Because it no longer survives! And such an act is against Kindness.” The girl got her lesson and dropped her wish.

Kindness is that purity of heart which makes one human help any other on the face of earth, regardless of the fact that a sweet fruit may not follow.

Advocates of Kindness

A mere glance at the world brings to us various advocates and practitioners of kindness and benevolence. Be it Mother Teresa, who devoted her entire life serving the poor or Zack Galifianakis, who helped a lady secure an apartment for herself when she had no home to stay.

The acts of kindness are never small or big. You may just spend few hours of your life with a neglected roadside beggar giving him condolence and showering care on him and that is just enough to bring him out of grief. He will end up storing those blissful moments at some corner of his heart forever. Years may roll by but he will keep the incidence afresh in his heart, even if you may forget it later!

This reminds me of an incidence. There was a boy whose mother wasn’t wealthy enough to buy him his favorite cake on his birthday. A gentleman observed this and he gifted him the same cake that he wished for. The boy’s mother though couldn’t pay for it, asked the gentleman to write his name, address and the amount on a piece of paper and hand it over to her, so that in future if she has the money, she could refund the amount. He scribbled something on a paper, gave it to her and left.

Years later, this gentleman retired and lead a life with lesser money and resources. On his birthday, his grandchildren went to buy him his favorite cake, but lacked money. A well off guy standing nearby bought them the cake. The grandmother was unwilling but readied on the condition that he would provide his contact details so that she could refund him later. He wrote something on a paper and gave it to her and left. When they returned home to surprise the grandpa with his favorite cake, he was very happy. Later, on asking his wife as to how she gathered the money to buy the cake, he was handed over the piece of paper. He opened it and read:

‘An act of goodness is not attempted to expect something in reward. Do good to someone in need and that will be true reward for me.’

Memories of past flashed in his mind and he was reminded of the poor small boy for whom he had bought a cake on his birthday and scribbled the same verses on the paper. He got his reward!

It’s time for us to step out of our own cells and have the sympathetic heart to hold the hands of someone who needs our help and spread the word of kindness in this manner. I would leave you with a beautiful poem by Emily Bronte:

‘There should be no despair for you,
While nightly stars are burning,
While evening pours its silent dew,
And sunshine gilds the morning,
There should be no despair -though tears,
May flow down like a river:
Are not the best beloved of years
Around your heart forever?
They weep, you weep, it must be so;
Winds sigh as you are sighing,
And winter sheds its grief in snow
Where autumn’s leaves are lying:
Yet these revive and from their fate
Your face cannot be parted:
Then journey on, if not elate,
Still never broken hearted!

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