Friendship, Kindness and Toy Story - How They Changed My Life

29th November 2023.

It has been many months since I have written anything. It was certainly not because of the lack of topics or incidents to write on, but rather due to the lack of motivation to pen something. The past few months have been rather tumultuous for me, personally. While I am yet to reach calm waters, I have been reminded by some events in the recent past to overlook the troubles and look at the bright side of things.

Recently I had a very interesting conversation with one of my esteemed colleagues. He narrated an incident that happened recently with him which helped me to look at things differently. His story happened on a rainy evening in Bangalore. He had started driving back from office around 8 pm and it was raining heavily. The notorious traffic of Bangalore was living up to its name and was moving at the famous “snail pace”. As he was inching his way forward, he noticed a young woman, standing on the roadside with some bags and looking around desperately for an autorickshaw. Her dishevelled appearance and the bags indicated she was at the last leg of a long journey and was searching for any mode of transport to finish the last mile. Seeing her predicament, he stopped his car on the side and rolled down his window, offering her a ride. The young woman was extremely thankful and loaded her bags into his car and he dropped her home. She was taken aback by his gesture and asked him the reason why he did what he did. His answer was simple – “I put myself in your spot and knew how much relief I would have felt if someone had offered me a ride”. She had tears in her eyes as she said thanks and he drove away.

Several hours later my colleague received a phone call from his son, who was studying in Chennai. His son wanted to come home to Bangalore urgently and was asking him to book a ticket. The available bus was starting from a remote location outside of the city and it was already close to midnight. My colleague and wife were worried about the safety of their son having to go to that remote spot and wait there for the bus. Desperate to seek some place where he could wait for the bus, they noticed that the location was close to the famous Taj Hotel in Chennai. His wife took the number of the Taj Hotel and called up the reception. She talked to the receptionist and told her predicament. The receptionist, an unknown young woman, told my colleague’s wife to not worry. She asked them to have their son come to the hotel and arranged for him to be at the hotel till the bus arrived. Not only that, but they also arranged a cab for the son to go to the bus stop.

Why did the receptionist of a big hotel chain, a stranger, go to such lengths to help a father and mother in their worry for their son’s safety?

There is a famous saying in English – What goes around, comes around. When we, in our day to day lives, manage to do some random acts of kindness, in one way or the other, sooner or later, we too will receive a random act of kindness from a stranger. It reiterates the inherent belief I have - that if we are living a life without harming others, and being kind, life in turn, will show its kindness to us.

Now onto the next event which changed my perception on things. I recently read in an article that one of the key factors for a person to be happy in life is that one should have many friends and few close friends. I have been extremely lucky that I have few such very close friends in my life.

During the past few months, when I was facing the said issues in my personal life, I avoided these friends. I was hesitant to bring them into my troubles and seek their help. However, as it is often said, a true friend is the one who stands by you in your voyage, no matter how rough the sea is. And these close friends, took upon themselves to confront me. Last week they descended on my home, scolded me, made fun of me but at the end told me that I should never ever keep them away. At that moment I realized how incredibly fortunate I am to have such wonderful friends in my life. It again helped in reiterating my belief that if I have them, no challenge is impossible.

As they left my home, I was smiling. They reminded me of the famous song from Toy Story, which certainly seemed very apt to the situation.

" You've got a friend in me

You've got a friend in me

If you've got troubles, I've got 'em too

There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you

We stick together and can see it through

Cause you've got a friend in me

You've got a friend in me"

Friendship and Kindness – two values that I believe are key to making our life a happy one. Please note I said happy, not successful. In my opinion, being happy is more important than being successful. And to those friends, I say thank you. You know who you are.