It's Hard to be Kind towards Privileged People

It was March 2010. My Dad came back from Nigeria after quitting his job. From that time onwards, I learned what it meant when the paycheck didn’t come home every month.

I was born with a silver spoon. I actually don’t know why people don’t use the phrase ‘gold spoon’ since that’s how I’d actually describe my circumstances to be. No, my parents aren’t billionaires or anything but I was born in an upper-middle-class family. Especially since I am the younger of the two children, by the time my mom gave birth to me, my family was well-settled.

My Dad was an Officer in the Indian Army and my mom was a primary school teacher. They didn’t earn a lot but we had a comfortable living, or at least that’s what I thought. You see, I was a spoiled little brat. I was pampered and had people to help me do my work. My father kept getting promoted in the Army and when I was 8 years old, he became the Commanding Officer of a Regiment.

I was proud of my father. If I’m being honest, I was a little arrogant too because everybody knew I was the CO’s daughter. People would give me anything I asked for, you see, my friends were kids of my father’s subordinates.

In 2007, my father took Premature retirement from the Armed Forces and joined the Corporate sector. He got recruited by a big firm at an executive level and was paid well, actually, very well. As you can see, things were going great. Sometime in 2009, my dad got an offer from a company in Nigeria and he left to work there. It clearly didn’t work out and he came back within 2 months.

That year, he got a few other offers here in India but my dad wouldn’t settle for a lower designation or a lower package. As time went on, the offers vanished and so did the people. People who used to be my father’s “so-called friends”, all severed contact with us. That’s when I understood what betrayal meant and what it did to your heart. It hurt, really bad. But we got through it, we learned not everybody who claims to be your friend is really your friend. But we also learned that some people truly will be there for you, no matter what.

One such family was of Dikshit uncle and aunty. Even though their kids weren’t very nice to us, uncle and aunty made it a point to be by our side through thick and thin. Especially, uncle. God bless that man. He’s a kind man. I will never forget that I will always be indebted to his kindness. I remember dad not being in town for maybe mine or Ayesha’s (my elder sister) birthday. Obviously, at that point, we didn’t care much for birthdays because we didn’t want to spend unnecessarily but he came over in the evening and took us all out to a restaurant for dinner.

People like him taught me that kindness can come in any form. You don’t have to give a poor man money to prove you’re a kind person. You can show your kindness just by being there for your friend or family member. Just a small gesture that signifies, “I’m here for you”, is all it takes. And it’s because of people like him I don’t give up on good people in this world, even though I’m aware that a good percentage of us are not good people.

The point is it’s hard to be kind towards privileged people. And yes, even at our worst, even at that time when we were considering putting up our house for sale, we were privileged. In relative terms, we were always privileged. I live in a country where thousands of people still live without a roof over their heads, where so many struggle to put food on their table.

Whenever I talk of the Dikshits, my eyes well up and my heart is filled with emotion. I have never felt more gratitude towards anybody in my entire life. It’s not my teenage self that is grateful to them but rather my adult self, because now I can fully appreciate and understand the depth of their actions towards us. Their kindness has borne its fruit because they have taught one more human being to be kind and that is the biggest deed of all.