It was 9:00 pm and I suddenly felt an urge to order food from my favourite restaurant. I opened a food delivery app and browsed the menu to select the desired food. I selected a few items and made the payment. The app showed that food would be delivered in 45 minutes.
I wanted to wait patiently, but kept looking at the app from time to time as my hunger was steadily increasing. Those 45 minutes seemed like ages.
The food got picked by a delivery partner after 30 minutes. I kept checking his movement through the app.
For a few minutes it seemed he wasn’t moving at all. Did he stop on the way to deliver food to any other customer? Did his bike break down on the way? All sorts of questions were popping up in my mind and trying to make me frustrated.
After a few minutes, he started moving. He arrived at my apartment within the stipulated time. As soon as I approved the notification on an app to approve his entry within the apartment, he arrived at my doorstep quickly. .
He might have manoeuvred treacherous traffic, braved broken roads and potholes, navigated through dust and constantly thought about delivering food on time. All this for earning an honest living in an expensive city like Bangalore.
I thought of giving something to him. As soon as he handed over the food packets, I gave him two KitKats.
His face lit up with a beaming smile. He tried to thank me for this act, but I was thankful to him for ensuring timely food delivery in spite of whatever he might have encountered on the way.
In today’s fast paced world where most of the things are now available online, human interaction is steadily on the decline.
I remember a time back in 2003-04 when we had BSNL landline at home. I used to go once a month to the BSNL office and spend 2-3 hours in the queue just to pay the bill. As there were no mobiles back then, people had time to speak to complete strangers for hours. That was lots of fun.
Things are turning out to be more transactional these days. We are reducing opportunities for expressing human emotions. Be it ordering food, grocery, medicine or paying bills for utility services, everything gets done instantly without any human interaction.
These days I keep some chocolates inside a blue box which I call the Happiness Box. Whenever a delivery boy comes to my home to deliver some item, I handover a chocolate. I can’t change a whole lot of things in their lives, but a small token of appreciation for their effort goes a long way to build that human connection.
Happiness in our lives compounds when we share it with others. It’s the way to build our own happiness.
This World Kindness Day, let’s make a better and kinder world.
Next time a delivery partner comes to your doorstep, unbox happiness. Share a chocolate.