Entrepreneurs of Compassion.
By: Nikita Sahay
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Compassion

When Sally moved into her new neighbourhood, it was nothing like what she was used to before. A small studio apartment in the suburbs, with hardly any ventilation and sunlight to shine through her muslin curtains, it seemed that now those curtains were only there to be used as a big cloth to tie up dirty laundry in the future, which was now. Sally was a successful Fashion Consultant at a high-profile clothing brand. As the pandemic struck the world, her company was one of the first to start letting go off employees and still begging them to do them a favour by writing letters of resignation.

“What? Resignation?” was all Sally could say.

Not expecting much of a reception from her new neighbourhood, all Sally could focus was on quickly stuffing up inside her new studio apartment. Her previous neighbourhood was pretty renowned for walking around with their chins a little too high up, infact mostly looking around at things with the corner of their eyes so that it was easy for them turning a blind eye on things they didn’t want to acknowledge. But unlike them, these new neighbours noticed every little thing. For instance, even Sally’s casual clothes were way more trendy and expensive than there Sunday dresses. And these people surely noticed that.

As Sally was busy unpacking her luggage, somebody knocked at her door. It was the matronly secretary. She gave Sally her customary speech for all the new tenants ending with a tad bit of a warm invitation to her house, which was unusual for Sally. Secretary’s visit was followed by two more neighbours whom Sally thought to be nosey at first but later on found herself mulling over the tiny bit of conversation she had with them. To her actualisation, they weren’t nosey at all. They were courteous and warm. Not sniggering on her misfortune like the people she used to be surrounded with earlier did, but actually understanding what she might have gone through to end in a small studio like that surrounded by people like them. By people like them I mean, people who mostly depended on their parishes to help them survive and wore the least expensive but always clean and ironed clothes. Others were there too, but the majority belonged to them. People, whom she won’t have even acknowledged before but now was talking to and actually having a great time. These people taught Sally something what all her friends attending some ‘Art of Giving’ classes couldn’t. They showed compassion. Real compassion, not the chanting one. And coming from a cut-throat working environment, it tasted quite lovely to her. Sitting in her studio apartment all day long and thinking about various innovative ideas as to how to get back roaring on her feet, her compassionate neighbours actually helped her achieving that state of mind to be able to focus on that.

As couple of months went by, Sally observed that the women in her building, including a famous girl cricketer didn’t invest much in there appearances, probably, because they thought it’s expensive to look that way and definitely not worth their time. But those women never failed to compliment Sally whenever she dressed up. They definitely had the taste.

It wasn’t long before Sally got her new business idea! She was bustling with energy as her new idea totally and totally appealed to her! She wanted to dress up all those women beautifully with lovely cuts and colours and maybe just compromise only a bit on the fabric, as she needed to be careful with her finances too. Never before had she gotten an idea like that! What was it? Looked like Sally was just reciprocating to their compassion, only just a bit more creatively. That was it! Soon, Sally started sketching and even stitching some pieces with some tailors as the backbone of her future-budding-business. Seeing Sally’s designs and colours even the oldies couldn’t help flocking at her door! Not just Beautiful, her clothes were very affordable too. Well, that was Sally’s plan. And she succeeded pretty well, literally bouncing back on feet and stronger than ever before! That’s the magic of compassion. So next time, when you see someone grieving or going through some losses, all you have to do is be compassionate. It literally costs nothing and builds lives for the purpose of strengthening quality Humanity!