The Small Things

Since COVID, I've been thinking about kindness. Remember that stretch of time? Sharing baked goods, grocery runs for elderly neighbors. Actual community! Somewhere along the way, we lost some of that — not because we stopped being kind, but because we stopped treating it like it matters.

Full disclosure: I'm kind to everyone except myself. World-class self-critic over here. And here's the thing — kindness must start with ourselves. Aarti from the WARE Collective has the right idea. She says she does things she likes — drinks tea, listens to bhajans (devotional songs) — because if she's happy, she can make others happy too.

On a recent trip to India, I got to talking with a group of artisans about kindness. Just a casual conversation, really. What I heard floored me.

I'm not saying it's all sunshine. There's plenty of the usual, very human stuff going on — disagreements at home, tension at the cooperative, normal life. But underneath it, there's this quiet thread running through everything: looking out for each other. For neighbors. For strangers even.

Here's the part that amazed me. After we talked, the women wanted to make videos about their own stories of kindness. Nobody told them to.

They told stories. Deepika, from WARE Collective, talked about lunches at the workshop — how her coworkers bring jaggery (unrefined cane sugar) because it's sweet, and because they know it's good for her health and that she likes sweets. It makes her feel like someone's thinking of her.

Asmita, from Shramik Mahila Mandal Cooperative (SMM), shared a story about filling and storing water. In the slums, water is only available for a couple of hours a day at communal taps. One day she saw an older neighbor struggling to carry two buckets, so she asked her husband to help. The next day, that neighbor's son showed up to help her carry her own bucket. A small kindness, rippling back around.

So, every week, we're going to share one of those videos with you on social media.
Watch. Then tell us your story, too.

It really is the small things.
Pushpika Freitas