Practicing kindness seems a second nature to Siddharth as he would slip into turning an ordinary moment into a moment of reaching out to the hearts of people. We found some of these rare jewels in the diamond city of Surat :)

One warm afternoon, Siddharth, along with his friends, stopped by a sugarcane juice stall for a glass of juice. The stall was managed by a father-son duo, with the father rotating the heavy wooden handle and the son carefully putting the sugarcane through the machine. Seeing the old father take on this hard labor, Siddharth and his friends got reminded of a story they had heard. They decided to befriend the father and asked him if he and his friends could help out.  "You really want to do this?", asked the father.  "Yes, just to give you a break", replied Siddharth.  The father agreed and Siddharth started rotating the handle. Soon others joined in and in no time, it became one happy sugarcane juice party.  Everyone shared the sweet juice of labour and paid for it too.

In another instance, Siddharth had committed to volunteer for a youth camp, after which he was invited to attend a cousin's wedding in the family.  He wanted to honor his first commitment but his family wouldn't approve, so the typical protocol would've been to just skip the wedding and make up some excuse later.  However, integrity is important to Siddharth.  So he flew down to Mumbai just to spend a day with the elders of that particular family.  He openly shared how he wanted to make a conscious choice, and wanted them to be a part of it. Seeing his commitment, his care and his clarity, the family ultimately was happy to have him attend the youth camp.  Siddharth's principle, though, was unwavering -- don't build one relationship by breaking another.  Find a way for coexistence and take as many people as possible along the journey.
 
Another admirable trait about Siddharth's character is that if he comes across a good idea, he will immediately put it into action -- and experiment.  Inspired by some Giftivism stories, he decided to try a pilot in the canteen of his own firm, where thousands are employed.  The buttermilk packets would be offered on a pay-it-forward basis.  His manager asked him once, "We've done this for couple months now but still, there's a deficit in the accounts. Do you still want to run it in this way?"  Siddharth responded, "Yes, absolutely.  Let's try few new things so people are more inspired, but in the end, this isn't a loss, it is an investment in trust and community."  

Similarly, Siddharth heard about how companies were using the Smile Deck to build compassion capital in their local ecologies.  So he translated it in Gujarati!  One of his daily practices is to start the day by meeting employees whose birthday falls that day.  He usually gives them a gift basket, and connects with them.  Now, he's going to pull out a Smile Deck and each will do a small act to pay-forward their gratitude beyond their immediate spheres.  And of course, he will gift the Smile Deck to the employee so they can let it ripple out.
 
It is such a joy to be in the space of such inspired spirits.

Siddharth is a great story teller, equipped with powerful parables.  During our meeting, he told us how we have two choices -- to find the light within us, or to figure out how to create lamp posts for the whole street.  "Lighting the candle inside our hearts is much more powerful, because each one can ignite another," he concluded.
 

Posted by Swara on Dec 24, 2013 | permalink