Date : 30.10.2014

Place : Chennai, India

Dear Kind blogger,

Thank you for all the kindness you showered upon me. It my pleasure to meet you in real and to be able to enjoy the generous hospitality you have offered me without a second thought. I must admit that I am really overwhelmed by the blind trust you showed to this perfect stranger - whom you have only known from the words and pictures on this blog - by trusting with the house keys.

I am not sure if I will ever leave a big house, with all facilities and a wide varieties of small to medium to big antiques and other expensive stuffs, with a  perfect stranger. Now I can think of all sorts of ways of making some easy bucks when I was all alone at your home, very near to the Chennai market where one can sell almost anything imaginable. But you chose to trust me, and that too blindly. So I couldn't even think of such a heinous act.

You allowed me to stay at your place, use the electricity, use the water, use the wifi and use all the facilities at your home. In return for what? My travel stories?! Or just like that?

I remember the day I received your message on WordPress and in Facebook page. The previous day,  I had updated my plans of visiting Chennai while I was travelling. When I had internet I found your message and I had already left from Chennai. You wanted a sort of wordpress blogger meet up. Somehow I didn't find the idea very cool at that point of time. But I replied, we exchanged numbers and we re-planned to meet when I come back to Chennai after the trip.

At that point I wasn't very sure of my plans. I wasn't sure that I would return to Chennai at all. But universal intelligence has different plans. So I had to return to Chennai and  we had to meet. So I remembered and called you when I was coming back from Thiruvannamalai. Even though I had one extra friend with me, you accepted our request without any hesitation.

You were heck busy with your work, still you replied to our messages and directed us patiently when we got lost. It was late and you still had to work, even though you took a break and came to welcome us, showed us the home, opened the door of your home for us and again left for work, leaving us, only us at your home, whom you have just met.

You didn't come back until 12 and we fell asleep somewhere around that time. We woke up in the morning with some plans to go out early in the morning. But you were sleeping at that time and we hadn't talked to you about our plan because we only saw you for less than 15 minutes altogether! After waiting for very long, at last I mustered the courage to wake you up. I made one ring to your phone, you didn't wake up; knocked at your door lightly, you didn't wake up, called out your name aloud, some how at last you woke up at 9 in the morning. Then only we came to know that you reached home at 2 in the morning. I really felt bad for waking you up and disturbing your sleep. But you said it was alright and you were about to wake up by that time anyway. I am sure you were being nice by saying that.

And again you showed us the secret place where you keep your house keys in case you weren't home when we come back later that day.  That day my other friend left for Kerala and I was all alone in your house most of the time. As per your request I decided to stay at your place for one more day. Thanks to my no-plans.

With the help of your wifi, I updated my blog, I found you in Couch Surfing site and wrote a very positive reference for you on that site and also found some couch surfing activity in Chennai area that day. And later that evening, I headed towards the Chennai couch surfing meet up and met some more kind people. You promised me that you would leave the office a bit earlier that day, so that we could get to know each other a bit more in detail. Even after I finished the meet at 8pm, you were still busy with your work.

But somehow you were able to reach home earlier than expected. And after staying at your home for more than a day, finally we could talk something. I thoroughly enjoyed your European trip adventures. I also wanted to know more about the bucket list that you shared on my bucket list page. And thank you for the movie suggestion, I watched it after I came home and  I immensely enjoyed 'the way'. Even though you had to work the next day, you stayed up late. We talked a lot about couch surfing. But I was really learning the real couch surfing spirit from you. The interesting fact is that I neither requested a couch through the Couchsurfing website nor I knew that you are a couch surfer as well. Anyway I learned a lot from you. You made me realise that the best things that make a journey interesting and enriching is the people you get to meet on that journey. Also you taught a lot about kindness and trusting people blindly.

This is what I wrote in my travel journal that day.

Kindness is a beautiful thing. All aspects of kindness are beautiful and it transforms everyone involved into a happier persons. It obviously makes the receiver happy and then in turn the giver happy and it even makes the spectator happy. So this whole kindness thing is a bringer of happiness.

I am bad with expressing my true emotions with the same intensity through my words. I have a feeling that I couldn't thank you enough for all the help and kindness you showed me. So I have written this letter to you.  Thanking you from the bottom of my heart for everything. It was great meeting you and  thanks again for all the life lessons you have taught me.

Jithin.

PS : This is a work of fiction based on true events. If any resemblance of places, incidents or people, it is purely intentional, as there are people like this really exists in this world. When I visited Chennai after my Thiruvannamalai days, I was at the receiving end of kindness. Meet  CheefHobo  Of Itchy Feet and Beyond. The kind blogger for whom the letter is addressed to.

PPS : Talking of Kindness and Kind blogger. I would  love to mention Amy of 'The World Is a Book… '  who is another very kind blogger who has helped me in achieving my dreams, who is still encouraging me to dream big. Thank you very much for the support, help and  everything.