The Joy of Helping!

One day I was walking in the main market area of Thane city. In the evening, the area was very crowded. Besides the pedestrian path, construction work of a drainage was going on. There was a lot of debris and construction material near the pedestrian path. In the busy hours, it was very difficult for the walkers to make their way through the crowd. People were prone to get stumbled or hurt due to the construction work. Hence, it was important for everybody to walk carefully.

While I was rushing through the crowd, I heard a noise of somebody stumbling behind me. I turned around to see what happened. I saw a visually impaired man trying to make his way to the Thane railway station with help of a stick in his hand. He might be about 50 years old. A man supported him to balance himself and went his way. Gratefully, the visually impaired man was not hurt.

I noticed that the man was walking towards the railway station. I approached him and offered my assistance. I told him that there was a construction work going on near the pedestrian path and asked him to be careful while walking. He said, “Yes, I will be careful”. I told him that I would walk with him to the station. He told me that there was no need to walk with him to the railway station. He said, “It will be great if you can help me cross the road and take me to the starting point of the footbridge that connects to the railway station”. I agreed and started walking with him.

He held my right hand and started walking with me. It took me a couple of minutes to cross the road and take him to the place he wanted. While we were walking, I was providing him information about what kind of construction work was going on and how he needs to be careful. While crossing the road, I was telling him that there was a lot of traffic on the road and we needed to wait and walk slowly. While we were walking, he asked my name and general information about what I do and where I stay. He politely told me that it was his regular way where he walks every day with the help of his stick. However, due to the construction work, he couldn’t make out his way and stumbled.

We reached near the entry point of the bridge. He thanked me and told me that he can manage himself from that point onwards. I asked him if he can walk to the railway station and take the train by himself. He told me that he travels between Thane and Dombivali daily without anybody’s support. I was happy to hear that he was confident about traveling on his own. He said ‘goodbye’ to me with a smile and started walking on his way. For few moments, I looked at him walking ahead confidently and wished for his safety. I was very happy to help him.

I saluted his spirit of accepting himself and living with a smile!

I remembered my college days when I had gotten an opportunity to become a writer for a visually impaired student during his exam. He was very thankful for my assistance and I was very happy to help him.

There are such special people around us. We should be ready to help them as much as we can. Most of the times, we are so busy and worried about our own needs that we forget there are people in the world who need our help. The infrastructure around us keeps on changing and enhancing. We should proactively inform the visually impaired people we know about the changes in the infrastructure around them so that they learn and adapt themselves to the changes.

The city corporation needs to be very careful while doing a construction work and needs to have a systematic approach to help the special people until the construction work is completed.

We can certainly do the things that are in our control.

Let’s be thankful and grateful to the Almighty God for giving us the incredible body with the ability to see the beautiful world. 

Let’s always be ready to help the special people to make their life easy and experience the joy of helping.

Have a helpful and joyful living! 😊