Discovering Goodness #6 – U Turn

For most of you this title could either remind you of a film released in 2018 or the very familiar traffic sign post. But for me, the meaning of this word, the image it brings to my mind has changed for ever since this morning.

Thanks to Mr Gudusab R. He hails from a village near Hubli and is a farmer by profession. Around three months back he moved to Bangalore and took up taxi service with Uber. He continues to do farming, This time, he has put timber (for wood) and hence much less work on daily basis.

I usually drive down to office. However, this morning, I instead choose to go by cab. I have both Uber and Ola apps on my phone, but mostly end up using Uber for its convenience and ease of using the app. I booked a cab and he arrived at my home in just about 2 minutes and gave me a call. I told him that I would come in 2-3 minutes. He waited patiently.

As I was walking down the stairs, through the slits in the gate of my house, he noticed that I was limping, taking time to get down the steps. (I recognised him taking note of this). He actually got a glipmse of me for only a few seconds. By the time I reached the gate, he had taken a U Turn, got the car up the pavement, right upto to the edge of the gate. This means, I had to walk no more and get right into the car. This actually saved me walking 10 extra steps. [Its not important to know what happened to my leg. Whatever, it was for good. Only because of this, I could experience the value of U Turn by Gudusab ji]

I didnt ask him. I didnt gesture to him to come to my side of the road. He noticed himself and took spontaneous action in less than a few seconds. This is what really touched my heart. It was free flow of spontaneous kindness !

After getting into the car, I immediately thanked him. He was calm about it. Although it was something natural that he did.

Through the next 45 minutes, we spoke a lot about his farm, crops he grows, challenges he faces, variability of market price, his plan for next crop, onion prices….He spoke wonderful Kannada. He had great knowledge of farming. No Degree. No Certificate. No Institutional Accreditation. Knowledge transferred from one generation to the other. He says, he continues to learn from his grand father.

Finally reached my office on Sarjapur Road. I once again thanked him and told him that I deeply appreciate what he did. I commented on his spontaneous goodnees and told him that this was his greatest wealth and wished him luck for his Uber experiment and his farming profession.

My memory of this word is now altered for ever: U Turn = Kindness by Gudusab

PS: I rated him 6-Star on Uber App. Selected the Hero badge for him and left him a personal thank you note.