Kindness is Contagious – so spread it - Article from May 2014

Dear All

The title is inspired by same proverb displayed on sticker that is stuck on 1 of the doors of a neighbour’s house where I stay.    

Occasion for this article is a real life incident which happened sometime in the last week of May 2014 at around 9 pm at night while I was driving back home from my office at Bandra.

After driving for 5 minutes on the road at Kalanagar-Bandra, enroute to the Western Express highway I saw a man sleeping on the road and blocking the car path (half of the road). I had an option of turning my car on the right and drive away back on route to home. But at that instant thru some instinct I stopped the car. Then I walked near the man to check if he was injured and saw no signs of any injury or blood but could see that he was breathing by the movement of his chest but was fast asleep otherwise (I sensed that apparently he was heavily drunk and had fully passed out).  

I travel by the road frequently and the cars drive fast in there. So there was a possibility that some car/cars would not be so careful and drive over the man’s body – injuring him severely or even killing him. I immediately decided that I needed to take all possible steps to save this man from getting injured. The reasons for his drunkenness may or may not be his fault – but he will be someone’s son, someone’s husband, someone’s father or any combination out of the three. I knew that 5 minutes enroute there is also a police check-post and police vans are stationed there.
I drove near the police check-post - on the way waved and stopped 2 cars coming from the opposite direction and narrated them to drive carefully so as not to drive over the man.
I narrated the incident of the sleeping man in detail to 2 police staff who were sitting at the post and to 1 police officer who was sitting in the police van and requested them to take due care and sensitized them that otherwise there was a high risk of the man getting seriously injured by moving vehicles.

I stopped to see & from a distance saw them reach over near the man and then I started the car and drove back home. I had possibly saved 1 life or at-least a major injury  

After returning home, post my dinner I got a rush of thoughts in my mind:

Why did I stop my car?
Because this may not be first instance of me observing a man lying sleeping on the road and I don’t recollect stopping my car even once in the past 10 years since I am driving except may be on 2/3 occasions where I had stopped for a moment and then driven away the next instant.

Was there any purpose for my actions being different this time?

Am I seeing some shift in my thinking – closer to becoming kinder, serving society?
I decided to think deeper but I still could not get the correct answers.

One thought that struck to me was, may-be it was possible that some people had taken care of me in the earlier years of my life when I had suffered injuries or encountered difficult situations and may be God wanted me to repay back to the society- by helping others.

Then I recollected 2 incidents from my childhood days:

1) When I was in 4th standard in school we were playing langdi on school ground after the school got over at around 12.30. The ground was of concrete and I had just learnt the langdi pose or stance. It was my den and I slipped while trying to catch my friend with the langdi pose and fell on the concrete floor on my head. The next instant I recollect I was in doctor’s cabin (since I had passed out) with my grandfather by my side and the doctor putting a bandage around my head and telling grandfather not to send me to school for 10 days.

l came to know on the next day from grandfather that my entire fore-head had been stitched and told me that 1 of my friend (I recollect Sanjay-he used to stay somewhere @ Chakala) along-with his mother had checked around – traced the maid servant who used to come for picking me – put me in an auto and dropped me home @ Vile-parle in the fastest possible time, since I was bleeding profusely.  He also told me that the Doctor had said that delay would have resulted in blood loss since it not stopping and me being admitted to hospital.

I need to check on Sanjay and meet his mother – the last time I recollect meeting him was at-least 13-14 years back.  

2) Next incident was when we were playing cricket on our ground when I was in 8th/9th standard. I ran for catching the ball for getting a batsman out and one of my friend also ran for the catch. My friend collided with me head on and his head hit my nose and my nose started bleeding profusely. One of our other friends from the group (I recollect his name was Diru) was staying across the road and he with all our cricket team (we were 5/6 boys) took me home. Diru’s house was locked so we rang his neighbour’s bell and the lady in the house, applied Ice on my nose for the next half an hour with her 2 daughters taking turns. The lady said that my nose had shaped into a tomato shape – with red colour – to which except me all others had a good laugh on her joke.    

The very next day of the incident, I visited the same police post near Kalanagar-Bandra and checked about the drunken man – whose whereabouts I had notified to the police and got a positive feedback from the police post to the effect that the man was recovering from his drunken-ness.  

Some Learnings that I could derive from these childhood incidents:

1. There may be other such incidents also – and I mentally thanked them in my mind and then realized that maybe now the time has come for me to return the good deeds back to the society. I also made up my mind to stretch my memory and recollect all the good people who have helped me in the past and try to trace and visit them.

2. May be there is something bigger that God has in mind for me to contribute to the society at large. I am still to think of a way – though I know that there are a lot of options available at hand, to make this genuinely possible.

Also if by this small write-up, I can ignite a spark in some people’s minds – I think this would be a good beginning. 

 

Have a great day

Ravindra