Kindness Rediscovered

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‘WE RISE BY LIFTING OTHERS’ No quote summarises the year 2020-21 better than this.


The year that has ravaged the world and our country especially has left a trail of destruction in every aspect of our lives. It has ravaged individual families, relationships in communities, economic stability and seeded a deep-seated mistrust and wariness for the future. All around people have lost family to death, workers their livelihood, children their childhood and human freedom on the whole. It was almost as if someone had pulled the plug on normal human existence.

Amid this devastation stood tall one single aspect ‘the generosity and kindness of the human race.’

In the past decades of accelerated technology development and improved quality of life, somewhere the ‘Act of Kindness’ became the forte of the extreme rich (who made a profession of it) or the religious organisations who received the funding and manpower for the same.  The youth of this generation were consumed by movements towards environment protection and physical and mental fitness in their spare time.

The pandemic of 2020 reoriented the simple act of kindness through generosity at the common man’s reach. As the pandemic ravaged, we saw thousands of selfless acts being done nationwide and in our individual neighbourhoods. The doctors and health workers who worked 36 hour stretches, the most non-descript homemaker who cooked relentlessly for the sick neighbours, the unassuming neighbourhood uncle who shopped for essentials for sick friends, the local public servant who went all out to find ICU beds, and the young people who tirelessly cooked and fed the hungry and sick across cities.

 The internet and social media finally found a war time emergency purpose as nearly everyone could now become a COVID warrior by simply stretching out to their work or entertainment networks to source the critical medicines, plasma, oxygen, ventilators and ICU beds. Each one of us felt an immense sense of happiness and pride as a contributor to the war against the unseen enemy.

In the silence from religious fronts, online communities rallied as armies to raise funds for various causes. The IT Gurus, bitcoin owners, coding geeks, digital space workers, rickshaw and cabdrivers, chefs and journalists, among the many unmentioned here, all got to experience the power of sharing selflessly, by contributing whatever they can to whomever they could. A whole movement towards rekindling our society’s kindness quotient was unknowingly happening. Apps were made, contacts shared and on the ground, the foot soldiers rallied day in and out, reaching food, medicines and necessities to the needy; be it an unknown friend’s relatives or a poor labourer’s family.

Never can it be said that this generation did not go to war when the nation needed them.

A generation perceived as narcissistic Instagrammers, Tiktokers, pubbers and self-consumed IT geeks got its true recognition as humanitarians. Kudos to the spirit of the youth today, some of them who literally gave their lives in the effort to save their elders.

Each and every one of them, known and unknown to us, deserve collective appreciation from our society and its leaders. When there was darkness and desperation they were a kind helping hand.

As the American Poet Mary Angelou said “My wish for you is to continue. Continue to be who you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness.” 


#healthworkers #doctors #kindness #humans 

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