Empathy in action

It was raining cats and dogs, thunders were cracking hard and the atmosphere was very tempestuous and stormy.  All the windows and doors were quickly shut and everyone was advised to stay indoors.

A five year old suddenly remembered something and felt anxious. He looked around as if something important was missing. After tussling within for a few minutes he rushed towards the door of the house. His mother quickly realized and tried to reason with the kid and persuade him not to go out in this stormy rain.

But as most matters with heart, reason did not stop the kid from giving into pressing urge to go out of the house for some important work. Mother gave in the child’s urge and stood at the door observing her kid with a worried look.

The kid was looking around, as if in search of something, he soon spotted a big gunny bag lying in one distant corner of the compound and rushed to take it. As soon as he got it he went out of the main gate of the compound and crossed a road to go towards the other side. His mother was now even more worried and followed the kid to bring him back. By the time mother reached the gate she saw her kid covering the young ones of stray dogs with that gunny bag!! When the puppies were covered well, the kid had a satisfied look on face and returned.

This feeling, I guess is called empathy.  What do you think?

When was the last time you truly felt empathized towards something, someone? 

Pay It forward

Long back I had seen a movie which titled as “Pay It Forward”, I don’t exactly remember the details of story, cast, director or music presently but the concept of paying it forward caught my mind since I watched this film.

It is a really simple concept with profound impact on individuals following it as well as on others connected to them.  It emanates from a simple act of help, wellness or benefit to anyone.  The concept says that whenever you receive a help, benefit or kindness from someone, instead of returning the favour to the benefactor, you pass it forward as a gesture of help, benefit or kindness to others who might be in need of it.

It expands the idea of help from being bilateral to multilateral. In a world that is now more interdependent and interconnected than ever before, such multilateral thinking about kindness and helpfulness is even more relevant and necessary.

All we need to do is to scan back and find all those moments when our lips made curves called smile, and see if we can transfer some of it to anyone who needs it right now. J

One Idea lights thousand candles

“One Idea lights thousand candles” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

 It is strange how innovation transforms lives of people. Latest innovation of a smart phone for the blind is one such potent idea that has a capacity of transform the meaning of smart phone for the visually impaired people.

Hardly in our day to day lives do we reflect on how the technology we take so much granted for is impacting the lives of people who are differently abled. However, thankfully Sumit Dagar and team of Kriyate – a start up – did not go into such oblivion and figured out a way to make a smart phone for the visually impaired.

Apart from the simple telephonic features the phone envisages to offer a lot more to its target audience including maps, images and text all in Braille!!!

Below is a link to the Video of his profile and presentation at TED. On seeing this, we realize what Ralph Waldo Emerson meant when he wrote the above sentence!!J

http://fellows.ted.com/profiles/sumit-dagar

 Do you have an idea that can transform lives or experience for anyone?  

I live for a strong, positive and courageous Response

I am a toddler, before I could even understand the differences of being a boy or a girl - I was raped.

I was a bystander, just a bystander in huge crowd, all of a sudden there was an explosion and all parts of my body were dismantled.

I am a mother, a doctor's mistake - also called as negligence by some- resulted in my only son's death.   

I am a widow who lost all her life savings in an investment scheme promising safety and higher returns.

I am an applicant in almost any government office who is going from pillar to pole fighting tooth and nail just to get his work done through the complex bureaucratic cobwebs.

I am a loving and loyal spouse who got cheated on, a fooled customer, misled follower, illusioned voter, strangled youth, and helpless old.

All these and many such situations throw us in shock at first, and then lead us into crushing agony.   However, through this blog, I endeavour to highlight things that we often lose sight of when we are surrounded with so much of negativity, agony, and anger. I welcome you all also in case you wish to highlight something, by way of comments. Just make sure that it is positive, amusing, inspiring, entertaining in any way so that it can offer a smile to those who read it. I will take the comments, make a post out of it and share here with credits.  I believe that focussing on all such positive things allow us to draw energy to fight the negative ones.  And collectively we will be happier lot.

The first thing on the card is an account of someone whose mother nearly got killed in recent bomb-blasts in Boston. The approach is filled with lots of courage.  

He writes in his article “To whoever did this, you tried to kill my mother today. I will in turn, educate your children. I will make it so they do not follow in your footsteps. As much as I want to, I choose to not give in to the call for hate. I choose not to give in to the urge to destroy. I choose to create, to educate, to help build a future where people like you aren't hunted down, because people like you don't exist.”

Such a powerful statement to make, it shows faith in the goodness, truth and integrity. In case you wish to read a full article, (recommended) here is the link.

http://www.policymic.com/articles/35733/how-i-will-respond-to-the-terrorists-who-almost-killed-my-mother/466695