This random act of kindness in Chennai gave a girl a shot at life & reaffirms our faith in humanity

Swathi, daughter of a woman who herds cattle for a living, landed up, mistakenly, in Chennai to attend a counselling session for a seat in the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University. In fact, it was happening in Coimbatore and she had only a couple of hours to make it.

Read about how a group of morning walkers, who chanced upon Swathi and her mother, ensured she reached Coimbatore in time and even secured a seat in B.Tech Biotechnology.

On Saturday, it was a regular morning routine on the Anna University grounds for the group of Chennai walkers who call themselves the Twalkers. “Walking is for fitness and the talking is for the mind,” says M. Saravanan, a Tech Mahindra employee who’s part of the group.

It was then that they noticed a young girl and her mother, looking lost and hapless on the campus. “They were asking the way to Anna Arangam,” Saravanan says. “The girl, R. Swathi, had been called for counselling for a seat in the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University. She carried a printout of the email communication she had received and it merely said ‘Anna Arangam’, not mentioning where.” The mother and daughter from Musiri, near Trichy, had asked someone who’d directed them to go to Chennai.

The walkers made a few inquiries and found that Anna Arangam was, in fact, at the TNAU in Coimbatore. And here, Swathi was, in Chennai, with only a couple of hours to make it, if she was to make it at all. “Trains and buses were out, so we decided that flight was the only way she could reach in time,” Saravanan says.

Perhaps it was the helplessness of Swathi or her mother’s tears that her daughter’s future was possibly ruined that made the Twalkers act as they did. One of them rushed off to his office to book the tickets, another called the registrar of the TNAU and explained the situation and asked for some grace time for Swathi.

“Swathi had never been on a flight before and was terrified,” says Saravanan. “We assured her all would be well, took them to the airport and spoke to the Indigo staff to assist them to check in.” He and his friends talked Swathi through the process, right up to the time she boarded the flight. In Coimbatore, they arranged for her to be met and driven to the TNAU.

They say the universe conspires to make dreams come true when intent is pure. Swathi, who had scored 1017 in Plus Two, made it to the counselling in time and also got her seat. She will now be studying B.Tech Biotechnology.

The Twalkers followed up right until they heard the good news. “We were so happy,” says Saravanan who is worried that all the social media attention might make their ‘small gesture’ seem like a publicity stunt. On a philosophical or even spiritual note he says, “The gods willed that Swathi’s future should be good. We were merely the agents to make that happen.”

Swathi’s family was deeply grateful. And here’s a lump-in-the-throat moment: Swathi’s grandfather called up Saravanan to thank them and say that he had saved up Rs 5,000. “He wanted to know when he could come and give it to us, to pay for the tickets,” says Saravanan. “We told him to keep it for his granddaughter’s education.”

This group of men with golden hearts may wish to underplay the import of what they did while on their morning walk. But the thousands of likes and shares for an FB post on the incident proves that it’s the sort of humanity that moves people and has the potential to create a wave of goodness and positivity.

As the bumper sticker says: Commit random acts of kindness and create senseless beauty!

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