An Accidental Domino

     Delicious food and creative metaphors, never fail to cheer me up. This common love might be the reason why I turn poetic when I see food. Our society looks like a giant fruit salad to me. It has diverse people with diverse behaviours. A fruit's taste, essence and value is known only when you cut through it. Just like that, a person can be called selfless or selfish, only when you get to know them. Amongst the selfless people, there are the ones who are born with a kind heart and the rest who have a change of heart at a later stage of life. I belong to the latter.

    

     Until my late adolescent years, I’ve always thought of kindness as a two-way street. I expressed my warmth only to the people who reciprocated it. I was not selfish but I was not selfless either. I have never gone out of my way to help a needy person or expected someone to do it for me. Just like a brook that changes its direction after hitting a rock, my perception of kindness took a different course after an accident.

    

     As I was coming back from college on my bike on a rainy evening, I did not notice the sludge on the road. My bike tyres skidded over it and I fell on the road. I did not even know what had happened for a few seconds. My classmate saw this and rushed to lift me and pulled my fallen bike off the road. He gave me water and helped me sit on the pavement. I had severely grazed my knees, hands and face. As it was dark, I was not able to see my injuries clearly. He gave his handkerchief and asked me to tie it around my knee.

After the rain stopped, he made a couple of calls and his friends came to take my damaged bike to the college hostel. He narrated the incident to my mother on the phone and assured her that he would drop me home safely. The next day, he brought home my damaged bike along with another classmate and wished me a speedy recovery. I was touched by his kind and selfless action. Despite studying in the same class, I had never talked to him or his friends before the unfortunate incident. He could have easily walked away or let a passer-by call an ambulance. But he chose to take an extra step and made sure I was safe.

    

     When I returned to college after a week, a lot of teachers and students that I rarely talked to, asked about my health and wished me well. Even though it was out of courtesy, it warmed my heart.

    

     Suddenly, I was filled with a sense of gratitude and realised the real meaning of kindness. It was no longer just about reciprocation. I understood that real satisfaction comes from being kind without expecting anything in return. From that day, I started noticing my surroundings more intently. I noticed significant changes in my behaviour. I genuinely complimented the people around me, offered to teach my classmates to get better grades and greeted everyone with a broad smile. I noticed how such simple acts brightened a person’s day. Even though I expected nothing in return, my social circle is wider now. There are people who genuinely care about me and vice versa.

    

     The society we live in is a huge row of dominoes queued one behind the other. When one domino falls, the adjacent domino falls, causing the next to fall and so on. When one person is kind, it rubs off on the next person and to the next person and so on. It is a chain reaction that I have personally experienced. The accident was the domino that fell on me and the kindness that I imparted to the people around me was the next domino and it passes on to the next.

    

     Kindness is the cherry topping on a beautiful cake called society and it becomes more delicious when it’s shared with others.