Kindness is what we need – The Good Story Project

World Kindness Day is celebrated on November 13 every year to promote the importance of being kind to each other, to oneself, and the world. In the last two years, as the pandemic drama unfolded, we witnessed death, starvation, mass migrant movements, job losses, and a spike in mental health illnesses. However, there was something that kept our flickering hopes and spirits alive. It was acts of kindness that touched our hearts. The pandemic scarred us at multiple levels, and the tentacles spread by a tiny virus affected every single person in some way or the other, yet the many stories of kindness encouraged us to sail through and motivated many to help those in need. The Good Story Project has documented some of these stories.

….

Lakshmi Ajay, a former journalist and a communications professional based in Bangalore, and her husband fell sick with Covid-19 as the second wave encompassed India in its deadly grip in April 2021. As they battled its manifold symptoms and sought help – the one thing that really made a difference came from strangers.

A relative stranger they were supposed to work with for a project volunteered and fed them home-cooked meals for the first two weeks of their illness. As they both battled fever, tiredness, aches, and pains – her food became the only uplifting thing that they looked forward to in their days.

Another stranger who responded to their enquiry for meals on Facebook sent them meal boxes with short handwritten notes stuck on them reminding them to eat healthy and get better while they recovered from the Covid-19 virus.

As Ajay rightly says: “Kindness is a panacea for the pandemic.” Click here to read Ajay’s story.

Ayanti Guha, who lives in a gated community in Hyderabad, shared her story and recounted how the gated community rose to the challenges of Covid-19.

A group of ladies (about 60 and counting) got together and formed a group that would cater to the dietary needs of the Covid+ individuals and their families who would be under quarantine. The plan was simple – instead of running a communal kitchen, each one would make a bit extra of the meals that day in their own home and put that information on a WhatsApp group created expressly for that purpose. Each day this information would be shared with the families who were under quarantine or in need of this dabba service. They in turn would indicate what they would want for their meals, and it would be shared with them at the time specified. The only requirements would be that the food be fresh, in tune with the taste buds and food habits a particular family is used to and voila, a dynamic, healthy and fresh food service cropped up in no time at all.

Read Guha’s full story here.

Rishabh Lalani shared his story and revisited the numerous acts of generosity and kindness he received when his entire family, including his younger brother, mother, and father tested positive for Covid-19. For Lalani (second from right in the photograph accompanying the story), who works as an independent consultant to the not-for-profit sector, the pandemic was an opportunity to reflect on why people are inspired to offer unconditional support and help in a time of great distress.

In his own words:

“Throughout the 30-odd days of this ordeal, nutritious food could have been a challenge. I can’t cook much and my parents, who manage the kitchen jointly, were down with fever. My elderly grandmother needed to be fed as well. Through sheer coincidence, we figured out that one of the Jain temples nearby was sending food for families affected by Covid-19, free of cost. They sent lunch and dinner for our entire family for one whole month. No questions asked. In fact, when they were winding down their kitchen, they called us, checked-in on our situation and continued sending food for three more days so that we had enough time to figure out an alternative. Given the fragile nature of everyone’s health during Covid-19, we also needed breakfast. My mother’s best friend kept sending breakfast for a full two weeks so that all of us had enough energy to power through the day. Every morning at 8.30 am, I would get a call asking me to send someone to pick up the food packet. No questions asked, no thank-yous and no frills. Just pure love.”

You can read Lalani’s full story here.

““Positive”. I was not surprised. I had started showing symptoms. So, one evening, while returning from work, I bought basics like an oximeter, a few specific medicines and isolated myself. The initial few days were tough, but the recovery phase was tougher. I experienced “collective grief”. The images and heart-breaking stories flashing on my TV screen and mobile feed were having a devastating effect on me. However, the comforting presence of Covid warriors who took to social media to help people desperately looking for hospitals, beds, oxygen, plasma, ventilators, medicines, or Remdisivir injections was extremely reassuring. Though I was in isolation in a city I had moved into just two years back, and did not have a solid support system in place, I was confident that if I needed help, it would arrive through social media.”

Click here to read a first-person account by Swati Subhedar, co-founder, The Good Story Project.

The Good Story Project with the help of artist Vidya Vivek brings together a piece that talks about the role of compassion and kindness during Covid-19

The Good Story Project started in the midst of the pandemic. Many of the stories that it featured reflected in part, what was happening around us because of Covid-19. Now, as a new year has begun, we thought we could use this opportunity to reflect on the issues and things that really mattered, those that left an impact on us and will guide us in the years to come.

And that is why, we decided to focus on kindness. The reason is, that without acts of kindness this year would have been even more terrible than what it was. And whether pandemic or not, kindness needs to be in abundant supply.

This piece is on how kindness impacts us as people, and a few examples of how it mattered when nothing else seemed to work or make sense.

Cooking and feeding — an act of love and kindness like no other

**Illustration by Ireland based artist Vidya Vivek**

A colleague’s mother recently received a voice message on WhatsApp. She had sent daily dabbas of home-cooked meals to her neighbour, who had caught Covid-19 and was too sick to get up and cook for herself. Every day, till her neighbour recovered, the colleague’s mother would place containers of simple, hot, nutritious meals outside her door. Once the neighbour was declared Covid negative, she sent a message. You can hear her voice, choking with emotions when she says she would never forget this kindness and that she would never be able to repay it back, but it meant so much to her. And that, out of all the neighbours and residents in the residential society where they lived, only the colleague’s mother had the foresight and the willingness to reach out and help.

Hearing the voice-note set us thinking. Imagine the power all of us have, the power to make a real difference by simply cooking in our kitchens and handing out meals to those who need it the most. It could be an elderly neighbour, a person living on his or her own, someone who is sick and exhausted or a family who has faced bereavement.

The pandemic has brought into clear focus the role food plays in our life, and also the disparity that exists in the world around us — so many people have full pantries and so many struggle to place three square meals on the table. And perhaps that is why, feeding people — those who were sick and unable to cook, those who needed help with their meals because they were elderly or homeless, or simply just unable to fend for themselves — was so important and impactful during the pandemic.

We could all do more of it in 2021.

If we know someone who could do with a home-cooked meal once in a while, all we have to do is to cook a little bit extra from what we are cooking for ourselves. Like Anthony O’Shaughnessy who cooked for his elderly neighbour during the lockdown in England or the way Rohit Suri, cooked meals for his tenant Kaushik Barua, a 30-year-old critical care doctor at a private hospital in Delhi.

Can we get you something?

Sometimes, we wonder how we can help someone else, bound as we are with our own unique personal challenges and limitations.

Here’s an example that might inspire you. My mother is blind, and she lives on her own with the help of two helpers. During the lockdown, her electrician called her up and said, to her, “Baa (grandmother), do not venture out of your house. My nephew lives in a society near to you, and so give me a call and he will deliver anything that you need and leave it outside your door.” And true to his word, his nephew helped my mother at a time when she and her caretakers were fearful of stepping outside the home. (The mother in reference here is the mother of one of the founders of The Good Story Project — Prerna Shah).

In a similar way, kindness was also brought home during the pandemic when countless people across the world thought about other people — people who may need help, and came up with innovative ideas and solutions. For instance, there were community groups, like My Block, My Hood, My City, (in Chicago, United States), which helped arrange for and deliver groceries and care packages for elderly neighbours.

It is empowering to realize that even with our personal limitations, we can help someone by doing something as simple as fetching their groceries while we fetch ours.

Every little counts, give what you can

So many people fundraised. People who had fundraised before, people who were novices. Fundraised for PPE gear, food packages for the poor, ventilators and other life-saving equipment for hospitals — and all of that made a difference. We found it incredibly inspiring and comforting to come across news reports and stories of people who campaigned and fundraised and then made these funds available to those who needed it the most — in the form of services, food, resources, medicines and a variety of other essential items.

On a personal level, we knew and were able to interview (for other publications) some very lovely individuals who stepped up to the many challenges of the pandemic and decided to fundraise so that funds could quickly reach people and organisations. One of the very moving accounts we heard was from a lady in Bangalore who had ventured out of her house to feed the stray dogs in her area during one of the lockdowns. When she was feeding the strays, several children came up to her, and asked her for the food she was placing on the pavement. She explained, that this was food for the dogs, and but they replied that they were so hungry that it did not matter. She rushed home and cooked a huge pot of khichdi and went back to the kids. From that day onwards, she started fundraising and working with like-minded individuals to run a kitchen that would feed hungry children living off the streets.

I am here to help, in any way that I can

We cannot even begin to count the ways people were able to be there for others — even despite the many restrictions that the pandemic imposed.

Sometimes, it was by taking up work and duties that most of us would be very hesitant to do. Like the duties that Abdul Rehman Malbari performed. Malbari, is the president of Ekta Trust, a Surat-based NGO, which has been providing funeral services for abandoned and unclaimed bodies for the past three decades. However, during the pandemic, he and his team went above and beyond the call of duty. During the months of April and May, they were ferrying 150 patients daily. Their job was to transport the deceased from the hospitals and homes and take them to crematoriums. Malbari and his team did not go home for weeks, and albeit they had PPE kits and safety precautions in place, it does warrant a question — how many of us would be willing to do what he and his team of volunteers did?

There were also goodwill gestures and simple acts of thoughtfulness. Remember the teary-eyed face of Karan Puri from Panchkula, Haryana? He turned 71 amid the lockdown. Puri was on his own as his children live abroad. One of his relatives contacted the Panchkula police via Twitter requesting to celebrate his birthday as he was alone at home. When the Panchkula police reached his home with a cake, Puri got very emotional and broke down in tears.

Some of these acts of kindness have been captured in words, or in videos or photographs and some are between the doer and the receiver. But what matters in the end is that these acts made a difference.

We need to continue with kindness, we need to do more

If there’s anything that we need more of, not just for 2021 but for the years to follow as well, it is kindness and compassion. In any way, or shape or form that we can.

The World Bank has said that Covid-19 was responsible for 71 million to 100 million additional people falling into extreme poverty in 2020. And the figures are getting updated.

People are hungry. People are unemployed. Lonely, grieving, anxious.

Let us just do what we can. Keep in touch with a friend who we know is feeling isolated or low; give what we can to a fundraiser, help someone with a referral or assignment if they are facing unemployment or a loss of income, listen with empathy when someone shares their troubles and simply remember the power that each of us carry within ourselves.

All of us can do something. And it matters.

On that note, we would be delighted if you are able to share any acts of kindness that you have encountered during the pandemic and if you are in turn inspired to pass it on in 2021. As they say, goodness must travel.

Do write in.

Tag: Kindness is what we need

After all, it’s kindness that binds us …

What kindness meant in 2020