Random Act of Kindness Award

The wonderful, caring and talented Muted Mouthful has nominated me for the Random Act of Kindness Award. I cannot tell you how hard I blushed and how wide I grinned when I saw the heart-warming words she wrote about me on her post. I was having quite a hard day and she managed to lift my spirits and make me feel a lot better, so thank you for that, my girl.

MY NOMINATION

It was difficult for me to decide who to nominate as I feel like I’ve made so many wonderful friends here, but I think I will do a post one day to celebrate my #bloggingsquad.

The blogger I’ve chosen to nominate is Suziey Bravo @ Of All the Books in All the LibrariesOf All the Books in All the Libraries for:

• Providing me with intellectual stimulation and for making me laugh. The latter especially is an important quality because I think it’s a kindness to make someone laugh, I mean, doesn’t laughter just make your day better? I mostly watch American comedy shows so you can see that I place a lot of value on humour.
• I can be quite stubborn about my morals and hold a staunch stance, but I find myself considering and coming around more when Suze explains things to me and I think that’s because she herself is quite open-minded, mature and she debates in a considerate manner.
• The logical connections she pieces together always has me mind-blown, I’m still reeling from her Gilmore Girls theory.
• She has such diverse interests and oh my God, that’s just so exciting for me!

I matter too, so I’m thankful to Suze for making my blogging experience fun and fulfilling.

WHAT IS KINDNESS?

Kindness can come in many shapes and forms, but I often feel like the “mean-looking” people do not get enough credit as to how good they are. I’ve frequently found that it’s mean-looking people who are our betters. That’s not to discredit the sweet-looking people, heck I get called sweet-looking in real life.

My definition of good isn’t someone who says sweet things all the time and keeps the peace. Keeping the peace/staying neutral = enabling bad behaviour to continue, and that bad behaviour will be passed down to others, so in the long-run, you’re not helping anyone. Whereas if you called somebody out on their crap, you can actually make a difference and then they will pass this value down to the next generation. Really, you gotta think with vision, your actions and inactions have consequences.

NOT-SO-RANDOM ACT OF KINDNESS

A long while ago, I had a group interview for a job. Group interviews make me anxious because it is really like living The Apprentice life. I had to perform an icebreaker roleplay and interact with the group whilst doing so. I did it and bounced a lot on my feet to tackle my nerves, but once I finished the interviewer said to me that I did good.

The final task was to set tasks and values in order of priority. Now, I don’t exactly look formidable with my baby face and even though I explained my priorities well, the others disagreed even though their priorities were so incongruous to the role we were all applying for, so my choices were over-ruled.

Ordinarily, an interviewer would be diplomatic and explain why the chosen priorities are wrong and just sigh that I wasn’t forceful enough (my explanations were logical, and I was persistent without being pushy). But this interviewer, who was so honest and direct, just called them out and asked why they didn’t pick the ones that I had chosen.

Not all heroes wear capes or smile (he didn’t smile once throughout the entire interview), they just speak the truth, do their good deeds and just go.

I’m cautious about forming first impressions and like to wait it out, but once in a blue moon, I get a strong intuition when I detect genuine goodness or corrupt evilness, and I experienced the former from the get-go before any words were uttered. And I was right (Elizabeth Bennet, are ya reading this?) (but then again who would like Darcy at first anyway).

Below are the instructions for passing the award forward:

1. Tell us who you are nominating, and why;
2. Copy and share the picture that shows the award, which I posted above;
3. Share a paragraph of something that impacted your own life in the way of receiving kindness or show how you extended kindness to someone else. For instance:
4. • I was once waiting in a drive-thru line for twenty minutes. I was in a hurry, but the line didn’t move much, it felt like. my day was getting worse by the moment. when I got to the drive-thru window, the cashier said someone had paid for my meal already. that really made my day a lot better.
5. Nominate anyone, or share to your own page, if you choose to participate. tag or pingback to the original person who nominated you, or the original.

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What do you think of my definition of kindness? Are you more righteous or sweet (I have an inkling that Gryffindor’s are more righteous and Hufflepuff’s are sweet)? Share your random act of kindness in the comments so we can all remember that even in moments of darkness that humanity is alive and kicking.

Aaaaand let me know if you’ve been keeping up with the Kavanaugh hearing, I’ve been completely consumed by it since the hearing began. Also, finally, the MeToo movement has caught up a bit in Bollywood as Tanushree Dutt has spoken up against Nana Patekar (for the second time as ten years ago when she did, she was dismissed for doing so) who tried to put in lewd scenes which starred Tanushree.

I’m ashamed to find out that the biggest male stars who hold so much power in the Bollywood film fraternity such as Aamir Khan, Mr Bachchan and Salman Khan have refused to comment on it. I am not sure why Mr Bachchan plays his characters to be a crusader of justice and justice for women (see Pink) and be the complete opposite in real life, we see you, Amitabh. Salman Khan has made a rape joke before and still hasn’t apologised for it, killed a homeless man and got away with it because of his celebrity status, physically abused Aishwarya Rai who, at the time of the abuse, was his girlfriend… so, I don’t expect any better from him (but I’m disappointed that people continue to watch his films and give someone who is so anti-human and anti-woman in real life such superstardom that he does not deserve… watching his films aren’t critical to your life, so shame on you). But I’m mostly disappointed in Aamir. I hope he speaks up about it soon because I feel that he has it in him to do better than that.

Otherwise, Farhan Akthar is like Bollywood’s Paul Rudd, he immediately spoke up and he’s just an unproblematic guy in general. You see… real men are feminists. Also, hats off to Sonam Kapoor who is never afraid to speak up and to the journalist and assistant who gave credible witness accounts. More Bollywood actresses have come out in support for Tanushree and the old-school men have stayed schtum.

Well, my morals are more important to me than two hours of watching a film. Amitabh, Aamir, Salman, you are not my heroes so I will stay away from your films. And for the rest of us, please, if you value women and you are a true supporter of feminism, boycott problematic stars because sadly the only way to make an impact is to make a dent in their pockets.

Okay, so now you can all see where I’ve been directing my energy for the past few days. And I know the above para looks like an essay but this is important for all of us.

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