[Below is a 2 minute video of Swara, captured "in the hallways" at Gandhi 3.0. Most of you may not have seen Swara, but she was invisibly laddering most of the volunteers. We all feel blessed by her infectious enthusiasm, tender love and hard work behind the scenes. In closed circles, we call her "infinitee-jeee" for her unending smiles. :) Thank you, Divyang and Sachi, for bringing us this short story, and a little bit of Swara's spirit.]



It was really amazing, I was traveling from Baroda to Coimbatore in the sleeper coach of a train during winter. A person who didn't have legs entered the coach. He didn't speak my language, he spoke in a south Indian language, which I didn't understand.

I noticed him getting onto the train, I happened to be on the top berth very close to gate of the train and had almost put my bedding and was ready to go to bed.

For some reason, I just felt that I really should offer him some water and asked him if he wanted some water in my language. He didn't understand what I said but reached out, took the bottle, opened the cap and started glugging down the water immediately with a lot of relief. I further offered him a shawl, which he refused with a smile on his face as he expressed through that smile that the water was exactly what he needed in this moment.

It was an amazing moment for me when I realized that, if you are aware and you tune in, you can really understand what people need. I was blown away by myself. Sometimes we feel like doing something for someone and we just let it go. An intuition creeps in and as we listen to it we feel like doing it more often. Such incidences or such small stories are a reminder for me to keep doing this :)