A FEW days ago my friend Sandhya had written an article titled ‘Priceless Gift’. The article depicted how goodness spreads with few kind words and acts. It was a real life example. There are many goodness ambassadors like Sandhya. The other day my sister was telling me about her lawyer friend. Her friend has her office at her residence. Her clients come from nearby villages. On one hot summer day, after consultation when the clients took her leave to go, she realised that they did not carry any water bottle with them. They were to travel by an ordinary State transport bus and would take at least 2 hours to reach their village. She gave them two bottles of cold water. The villagers were mighty impressed by this act and soon the news about the goodness of the lawyer madam was talk of the village. The gesture had sown a seed of goodness and the result was seen many a times by her in varied circumstances. Once she won a case for a lady of that village. No fee was charged because of pecuniary condition of the client. But the grateful soul said, ‘Madam, I have two she-goat. I will give you one.”

 

The lawyer refused the kind offer of the fee in kind, but was mighty impressed by that lady’s gratitude. She thought, this is how the goodness travels through tiny gestures. Each day I get to see at least one ambassador of goodness. My sister had hired an autorikshaw from Dhantoli to go to Dharampeth. The driver took her till Lokmat Square and requested to go by another auto. He said, “Madam, this autorikshaw driver had not had a single fare since morning. Hence, I am requesting you to go by his auto”. Here was another goodness ambassador that we witnessed. Recently, my colleague had to face personal misfortune. The workload was heavy and time bound. Her colleagues however, without being told by anyone quickly took charge of her work. They would complete the reports and keep it ready for her for uploading the same. They were doing it when they too had a heavy workload and helping their colleague meant extending the extended hours and drawing on the diminished energy reserves.

 

Helping others when a person is in a comfortable situation is definitely noteworthy, but its value is enhanced many times when the help comes from those who are already buried neck deep under severe pressure. This help for my colleague from her team members was a wonderful goodness gesture. These goodness ambassadors are unrecognised at the media level but their act of goodness travels many miles through a chain reaction. People say that the society is full of bad people. If we believe in the saying that literature/cinema/television serials are the reflection of society, then the abundance of wickedness in the characters portrayed therein would make anyone disbelieve in the goodness in society. Thankfully, the real life examples keep the faith in goodness afloat. Mahatma Gandhi had said, “You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty”. This great leader could keep faith in the humanity because the goodness ambassadors are not a product of recent times, but this tribe has been in existence since time immemorial.